


Down in the Flames

by icyshark



Category: Until Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: AU Mike Isn't a Dickhead, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Multi, jk he totally still is
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-22
Updated: 2017-01-05
Packaged: 2018-05-15 09:58:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 26,984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5781553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icyshark/pseuds/icyshark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Hannah and Beth run off into the storm, Mike finds them and returns them to the lodge. Something follows them.</p><p>((FORMERLY KNOWN AS "HIDEAWAY")) (title from "Long Way Down" by 1D)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I've been sitting on this AU for weeks. Time to be free.

"You guys are jerks!" Beth shouted, turning to follow Hannah into the woods.

Sam whirled on Mike. “You are going to fix this, Mike,” she said, jabbing an angry finger hard into his chest.

Mike scoffed defensively. “What? Me? This isn’t my fault.”

Sam’s eyebrows shot up and she snorted. Mike was one of her closest friends, but he could be a real fucking prick. “Are you kidding me? Go get her. Right now.”

“What? No,” he insisted, backing into the lodge. “No, no way. They’ll come back on their own.”

Jessica was suddenly restless. “Shit, Mike, maybe you should.”

Mike threw his hands up and let them slap back down onto his jeans. “What? This whole thing was your idea! Why don’t _you_ go?”

Jessica shook her head, and all of them stared expectantly at Mike. He tried to stare back and resist, but damnit, he was a slave to the public. Being a charismatic leader wasn’t always an easy job.

“Fuck! Fine!” he shouting, stomping off into the storm. “But we are going to have a serious talk about this later!”

Sam laughed mirthlessly. “You betcha, ‘class prez’!” she shouted, back turned to Mike. Her stare was intense, almost daring the rest of them to say something.

Ashley was the first to guiltily slink back inside. They were all burning under Sam’s gaze, the buzz of alcohol fading quickly now that the consequences of their actions were becoming ever clearer. Sam watched the progression. Matt’s eyebrows twisted together and he swore under his breath, shaking his head as he shuffled back inside. Emily’s mouth twitched into the tiniest of frowns before she rolled her eyes and returned to the warmth of the cabin. Jessica stayed the longest, even when she and Sam both started to shiver.

When Sam finally turned away to scan the woods, Jessica reached for her arm.

“Sam,” Jessica said. Sam yanked her arm away, so Jessica tried again. “Sam, I’m sorry, okay?”

“I’m not the one you should be apologizing to,” Sam snapped, crossing her arms. The cold was bone-deep, and the wind sliced right through her sweater, but Sam was determined to wait until Hannah, Beth, and Mike came back before going inside. She shivered fiercely and shook her head. Hannah must be freezing.

Jessica put a hand on her hip. “How were we supposed to know she’d run off? Like, why is it our fault she overreacted?”

Sam didn’t dignify her with a response.

“Sam, come inside,” she said, a touch of genuine remorse in her tone. “There’s no reason to freeze your buns off out here. You can wait by the window.”

Sam turned and stared at Jessica harshly. In her heart of hearts, Sam knew Jessica’s irreverence was a defense mechanism. She was likely wracked with guilt on the inside, but it was easier for her to deal with when she pretended she wasn't. Sam knew this, but her disappointment swamped all sympathy she might have felt.

She pushed past Jessica to rush back into the lodge, hurrying to the kitchen so no one would see the tears forming in her eyes.

* * *

 

“Hannah!” Mike called, jogging through the flurry of snow that was falling thicker now that he was further from the cabin. He could barely see a thing. “Beth!”

The cold stung his cheeks and fingers, and he growled.

“Where the fuck did you go?”

He followed the two frantic pairs of foot prints in the snow, slowly being buried under new layers of snowflakes. Mike was suddenly a little less pissed about being forced to follow the twins; only twenty minutes longer and no one would be able to follow their path. He ignored the animals rustling loudly in the foliage until a splitting, ugly screech pierced the air. When he spun to find the source, he caught the bright pink of Beth’s jacket through the trees, her phone’s flashlight illuminating the frozen ground in front of her.

“Beth!” he shouted, jumping around the trees to catch up to her. “Did you hear that?”

“Oh, you’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Beth whirled on him, punctuating with a harsh shove to Mike’s chest that actually knocked him off balance a little. “Seriously, piss off, Michael.” She shoved him again and turned away, walking quickly after Hannah’s footprints.

“Jeez, Beth, come on,” Mike panted, jogging to keep up. He huffed in exasperation and leaned forward, trying to catch her eye. “I’m sorry, okay? I’m trying to be nice.”

Beth snorted. “Well, you’re doing a great job,” she sneered, voice quaking with anger. Mike followed her in silence for a full minute, staring at her face, before she shouted at him again. “Can you just go away? You’re probably the last person Hannah would want to see right now, dickhead.”

A burst of flames cut through the darkness, startling them both.

“What the shit is that?” Mike asked. When he turned to look at Beth, she was already rushing down the path Hannah had followed. “Beth, wait!”

Beth gasped. “Hannah!” Mike rounded a tree trunk and saw her too, curled up in a ball on the ground, crying. Beth rushed to her side, immediately taking off her jacket to wrap her sister in. “Hannah, you must be freezing.”

“I’m so dumb,” she sobbed into Beth’s arms. The twins turned to look at him at the same time, Beth with a glare and Hannah with the saddest little puppy eyes that Mike had ever seen. He felt like a massive, massive shithead. “Mike?”

“Hannah,” he said, approaching slowly. “I’m really, really sorry for what just happened in there, okay? I’m so sorry.”

Something about the situation shifted, and the atmosphere was suddenly darker and more ominous. The looks on the twins’ faces reflected Mike’s own perception, and all at once, they were afraid.

“What’s going on?” Hannah whispered, clutching Beth tighter.

Another screech tore through the forest, and all three of them ducked with their hands over their ears. They shared a brief fearful look before Mike launched himself into action mode.

“We need to get back to the lodge,” Mike said quickly, striding forward to grab Beth’s hand. “Now.” He dragged her behind him. She was obviously reluctant to touch him at all, but Mike figured holding Beth’s hand was better than trying to hold Hannah’s. They needed to focus on getting out of the damn forest, not whatever drama Jessica’s little prank had just caused.

They tore through the woods, and whatever was making those horrible noises sounded close by. More random bursts of fire burned bright in the darkness, and now Beth was squeezing the life out of Mike’s hand.

“What is that?” Beth shouted. Hannah was breathing erratically behind her, clearly panicked.

“Fuck, I don’t know!” Mike called back to her. “Let’s just fucking go!”

The lights of the lodge were coming ever closer, but they still seemed so far away. They heard a branch snap loudly, and Hannah screamed as it came crashing down inches away from Mike’s face. When he looked up, something was looking back at him from the tree. Another burst of fire, even closer now, snapped Mike back into reality, and he pulled on Beth’s hand.

“Come on, we’re almost there!”

With his heart pounding in his ears, Mike could have cried with joy at the sight of the Washington lodge’s front doors. He started to slow down when they were a few feet from the door, and suddenly another screech rung from the trees, so loud it hurt.

There was an egregiously loud thump as something ran into the house. When Mike opened his eyes, he didn’t even know what he was looking at. Whatever it was, it was hideous. Disgusting, spider-like limbs and a faceful of razor-sharp teeth bordered by frozen, rotting lips. Beth froze immediately, but he could feel Hannah started to run away. Before he could say anything, a voice called out from the trees.

“Don’t move!” someone shouted. The beast’s head snapped to the source of the sound. “You stay put right there until it’s gone, you hear me?”

A blast of fire from behind them made all three of them jump, but they stayed still as they were commanded. Another burst of flames sent the monster running for the woods, and only when he was sure it was gone did Mike drag the twins inside the lodge, locking the door behind him. They all collapsed to the ground, breathing heavily.

“Fuck!” Beth panted. “Fuck, what was that?”

Hannah wailed, and Beth pulled her to her chest protectively. Mike dragged his hands over his face. “I- I don’t know. And who would be in the forest? I thought it was your god damn mountain.”

Before Beth could respond, the kitchen doors flew open and Josh came barreling through them, Sam and the others hot on his heels. The rest of them formed a nervous audience as Josh crossed the floor to Mike. Sam laid a hand on his arm, but he flung her off sharply. Mike knew Josh was coming for him, but he was so exhausted and terrified by his experience outside that he didn’t brace for impact.

Josh was on him in seconds, yanking Mike to his feet by his shirt collar and smashing his fist right into Mike’s face. Mike grunted and stumbled, but Josh held tight.

“Stop!” Sam shouted, pulling desperately at Josh’s arm. He growled and shoved her so hard that she tumbled to the ground.

Josh turned away, unaffected, and went for another swing when Beth caught his fist.

“Josh, stop!” Beth bellowed, staring him down. He stared at her for a moment, still manic, but slowly softened. Mike watched his face change, and as Josh came back to himself, he let Mike’s collar slip from his hand. Panic flickered across his features and he swung around to Sam where she was almost cowering on the ground. He crouched to help her to her feet.

“I’m sorry,” he breathed, his fight with Mike completely forgotten. “Did I hurt you?”

Sam shook her head, but she was visibly rattled. “No, it’s fine.”

“Okay,” he said hurriedly. Sam brushed herself off and Josh rushed to scoop Hannah off the ground and into his arms, clutching her tightly to his chest. “Come here, Han,” he soothed. Hannah sobbed into his shoulder, and Mike was struck with potent, noxious guilt.

Beth caught his eye, the question obvious in her face: _should we tell them_? Mike nodded tightly and she placed a soft hand on Josh’s arm.

“Josh, there’s someone in the woods.”

Josh furrowed his eyebrows in alarm, unconsciously drawing Hannah closer. “What?”

“There was-” Mike started nervously, eyes flicking back and forth from Josh to Beth. “There was something in the woods that was chasing us. It- it blocked the door before we finally got in here, and I- it was-”

“It was some monster thing,” Beth said, coming to Mike’s aid. “It looked like a, like, spider zombie thing.”

Mike rushed to the door, afraid and very conscious of how unhinged and completely nuts he must have looked. “And- and there’s some guy out there with a fucking flamethrower or someshit hunting it.” He winced, pain finally lancing through his face from Josh’s punch. When he opened his eyes again, everyone in the room was staring at him in silence.

“Are you guys joking?” Matt finally said, prepared to laugh uncomfortably if the answer was “yes”.

Hannah pulled away from Josh and wiped her tear-streaked face. “No, no, he’s telling the truth. I saw it too.”

“Are you sure?” Sam asked, coming to stand beside Beth. She was obviously trying to be gentle, because Hannah had been through enough that night. “It couldn’t have been some kind of animal or something?”

Mike sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “It was crawling up the walls, Sam. Jumping all around, right in front of us.”

“I’m surprised you guys didn’t hear it,” Beth said, voice cracking. She had been so composed this entire time, but now Mike saw the cracks. “It was scrabbling all over with its, god, its claws. . .” she trailed off, losing her breath. Mike reached out and tentatively rubbed her back, and when she didn’t shake him off, he kept his hand there.

A huge burst of fire reflected off the back door’s window, and Mike knew Josh saw it at the same time he did.

“There, look!” he said, shaking Josh’s arm. “See? That’s the flamethrower guy!”

“Seriously, what the fuck are you talking about?” Emily snapped fearfully. She crossed her arms. “This isn’t funny, Mike. You’re freaking me out.”

“Mike, if this is a joke, we get it, okay?” Jess said, rocking back and forth nervously. “Stop.”

Mike crossed the room quickly, stopping at the back door. “No, I’m serious. We saw something out there.”

A piercing cry cut through the silence and Hannah, Beth, and Mike all flinched.

“What was that?” Ashley squeaked, squeezing Chris’ arm. Chris was still a lot more inebriated than Josh and clearly had limited understanding of the situation at hand, so all he could do was clumsily pat Ashley’s hand.

Beth shushed her harshly and they all stood still as the grave, just waiting. After a moment, the sound rung in the air again, and Ashley yelped.

“Did that sound closer to you?” Josh whispered to Mike, one arm still hung around Hannah protectively. Flames illuminated the darkness of the forest, and all of them gasped.

“What the fuck!” Jessica hissed, edging towards Matt. “What the fuck, guys!”

“Okay, let’s all chill out,” Matt said, stepping forward. He spoke calmly and quietly, ever composed. Mike had the juvenile urge to hit him. “Mike, Beth, Hannah: let’s say, hypothetically, that there’s a monster and a guy with a flamethrower running around outside. What are we supposed to do about this?”

Beth and Mike looked at each other, and Mike gave the tiniest of shrugs.

“Well,” Beth said with a shaky breath. “When we were outside, the guy told us to stay still and it was like- it was like it couldn’t even see us.”

“So you’re saying we should all just stand here all night?” Emily huffed. Mike loved her, of course, kinda, but damn he hated the bitchy “confidence” she used to mask all that insecurity.

Beth looked hurt, but recovered quickly. She, like Mike, knew Emily well enough to understand why she was being short. “No, Emily, I’m saying we should just go somewhere in the house with no windows. Turn off all of the other lights, and just take it easy until morning.”

“Hide?” Ashley said, clearly panicking. “That’s our plan? Just hide?”

Surprisingly, it was Josh who responded. “Well if you’ve got a better plan, Ash, feel free to share!” His voice sounded off somehow, and typically he’d never snap at Ashley like that, but tensions were high.

They stood in silence for a tense thirty seconds before a shriek, the loudest they had heard, rocked the silence.

“Okay,” Mike said quickly, clapping his hands. “Let’s hide.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hiding doesn't go as planned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chap might be a lil boring/slow, but it serves a necessary function in the story. This thing kinda got away from me, guys. I have a huge plot planned out now... like 10+ chapters?? Yikes. Anyway, enjoy!

Following Josh’s lead, they thundered down the stairs and piled into the cinema room. Sam grabbed Josh’s hand and squeezed it quickly.

“Good idea,” she whispered, and Josh let his heart skip a beat.

At the same time, Ashley groaned. “A cinema room? What, are we going to watch a movie while a freaky monster thing is running around outside?”

Josh clenched his jaw. His anger was something that threatened to overtake control of him at least three times a day, and it was usually set off by other people. Josh really did like Ashley, in part because Chris was so head over heels for her, but when she got scared, Josh found her ugly. Not physically, obviously, but she was so stereotypical, “girl who can’t stop screaming in a horror movie” that Josh wanted to lose his cool. Well. He actually really didn’t, so he looked at Beth and willed the anger away.

“We’re in the basement,” he began, strained. He opened the cabinet and threw a pile of blankets for Beth to catch and distribute on the theater seats. Josh opted for sarcastic, his favorite deflection method. “This room is sound-proof, the doors can lock, and if need be, we can go further into the basement through _yet another door_ that can be locked. This is the best place for us to be.”

Chris, slowly sobering, put his arm around Ashley and shook her lightly. “Why not watch a movie? It’s better than everyone just sitting around being scared. It’s fine, Ash.”

“Horror, anyone?” Mike joked, rattling the case of Cabin in the Woods next to his face.

“Cut it out, Mike,” Sam said, hurrying over and snatching the DVD out of his hand. Josh thought it was pretty funny until he remembered what was happening. Shaking his head, he found Hannah, already curled up under a blanket in the front row of theater seats. Crouching down, Josh rested a gentle hand on her knee.

“I gotta set up the projector, okay?” he whispered, trying to get her to look at him. When she wouldn’t, he sighed. “Want me to sit by you when I come back?” Hannah shook her head. “Want Sam?” She nodded, and he patted her knee as he rose to retrieve Sam.

He let himself have a selfish moment of hurt, then let it roll off of him. It made sense. Sam loved the twins just as much as he did, but they loved them and protected them in different ways. The monsters Josh could handle; he had plenty of experience with those. The added element of Mike’s betrayal, however, was something Josh was fantastically ill-equipped to deal with. All he could offer Hannah in boy troubles was threatening to kick the guy’s ass, and he had kind of already done that, so his usefulness was pretty much expended. Sam caught his eye and he cocked his head at Hannah. She nodded and left her conversation with Mike to join her.

“Want help picking out the movie?” Matt offered, clearly eager to escape the suffocating tension in the room.

It was Matt’s first time coming to the lodge, mostly at Jessica and Ashley’s request, but Josh had almost liked him. He was a leader, but instead of commanding and controlling like Mike, Matt was soft-spoken and calmly authoritative. He was someone that people listened to and he knew it, but he never thought for a minute to exploit that. Matt’s perceived goodness kind of made Josh feel like a piece of shit, but he could never bring himself to hate him for it. When he heard about the prank, it was pretty gratifying to find out that Matt was just as big of an asshole as everyone else.

Josh smiled to himself, though he was sure Matt thought it was for him. “Sure man. Come on,” he said, waving him to follow as he slipped past the hidden little door to the projector room. Matt followed quickly but calmly, and closed the door behind him.

“Really though,” he started, far more serious than he was only moments before. “What the hell are we going to do? I mean, how do we even know what’s really going on?”

“I know it all seems a little stupid,” Josh replied distractedly, running his finger over the shelves and shelves of DVDs covering the walls. “Monsters, and everything,” he said, waving one hand in mock terror. “But I think we should just go along. After all, Hannah’s been through enough tonight, wouldn’t you say?”

The mood grew sour, and Josh caught Matt’s eyes.

“I know, and I’m sorry about that, Josh,” Matt apologized lamely, shoulders slumped. “It- it was supposed to be funny, you know? Nobody was supposed to get hurt.”

Josh started pulling titles off of the shelves randomly. “Yeah, well, Hannah did get hurt, _asshole_ ,” he said. Darkness was rising in his throat like vomit, and he fought to keep it down. “You all need to take responsibility for that.”

Matt deflated further. “Shit, Josh, it really was fucked up.”

Josh caught his eyes with a look so fierce it could have killed him. “Is that all you came in here to say?” he snapped, throwing the fucking movies at the ground. Fuck. “I don’t have. . . I can’t talk about this right now, okay? Let’s all just play pretend and eat our fucking popcorn and watch our fucking movie and hide from the big bad zombie spider and the flamethrower man, okay? Is that alright with you, Matt? Can you handle that?”

Matt nodded slowly and backed away. Josh was acutely aware of how fucking nuts he looked, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. Their actions absolutely warranted Josh losing his shit, and the only reason he was trying to keep a lid on it is because he knew it would only make Hannah more upset. He clenched his fists and shut his eyes tight, hoping Matt would just leave in the ten long seconds it would take for him to calm down.

“Alright,” Matt finally responded, deceptively calm. Much more diplomatic than Mike. “I’ll wait in the theater with everyone else.” Josh ignored him, running his hands through his hair and staring at the mess he’d made.

Matt slipped through the door silently, and through the little window for the projector, Josh saw him pull Jessica aside. That little son of a bitch. _Oh, we were wrong Jessica, we fucked up, I came to this realization all on my own because I’m a swell dude._ He was obviously trying to make things right, but Josh wanted to deck him for it. All of the qualities that had impressed him at first now grated on his nerves. He shouldn’t be allowed to make peace so easily. None of them should.

* * *

She had been so excited to go to the lodge that winter. Since Josh was nineteen, their mom and dad finally let them all go up there with no parents. It was supposed to be the best weekend of their lives. She was supposed to get drunk for the first time. She and Beth were supposed to get Josh and Sam together. Mike was supposed to fall in love with her.

It was so unbelievably stupid. Hannah should have known better. Years of silent pining and she thought, what, that he’d return her affections with a note? She hadn’t stopped crying since she first ran out of the lodge. Having her heart shattered and then almost freezing to death in a forest filled with freaky monsters and fire was a pretty big damper on the evening.

She didn’t want to see anyone right now. All Hannah wanted to do was go home or go hide in her room until everyone just went away. That’s why she ran away in the first place. Even being in the same building as Mike and Jess and all of them was too much to handle, and she would have suffocated if she didn’t get out of there immediately. Obviously, that was a bad call on her part, but how was she supposed to know some disgusting monster thing was running around the forest?

She recalled its face and shuddered. It was only in front of them for a few seconds before it leaped back into the trees, but it was horrifying. Hannah had never seen something so ugly and scary in her whole life. Looking around, she knew that no one believed them. Emily twirled her hair around her finger, typing very angrily on her cellphone, probably gossiping about how lame the lodge was this year. Ashley was pretty spooked, but Chris sat next to her with poorly concealed boredom on his face. Matt and Jess were off in the corner speaking in hushed whispers, and Beth and Mike were leaning on the wall, motionless and silent. Mike caught her eye and she whipped her head back, heart beating hard in her ears.

“You okay?” Sam whispered. Hannah shook her head.

“I don’t know what’s going on, Sam,” she sniffled, looking at her best friend. Her heart sunk a little every time she did, because she could see in her face that Sam didn’t believe them either. “I’m really scared.”

“It’ll be alright, Han,” she soothed, rubbing circles in Hannah’s back. “We’ll just stay down here until morning and then everything will be fine, okay?”

The screen flickered to life, and the opening sequence of Grease illuminated the room. Josh swung down the narrow steps and shut the projector room door behind him.

“Grease?” Emily sneered, dropping the piece of hair she’d been twirling. “Seriously, Josh?”

“What?” he shrugged, sitting down next to Sam. “It’s a classic.”

They all settled down to watch. Grease was one of Hannah’s favorite movies, and she suddenly regretted turning Josh away in favor of Sam. She wanted to lay her head on his shoulder, so she settled for Sam and hoped it would feel the same.

In the front row, Hannah, Sam, Josh, and Beth sat next to each other. The second row was occupied by Matt, Ashley, Chris, and Jessica. An empty row separated Mike and Emily from the rest of them, and Hannah was grateful. The further she was from Mike the better, and the last thing she needed was Emily getting all territorial. There’s no way Emily believed them about what happened outside, and she wouldn’t hold back on Hannah, no matter what she thinks happened.

“I’m _tired_ ,” she whispered to Sam midway through the movie.

Sam looked at her. “You wanna go to sleep? We have blankets and pillows everywhere, you can just set up a little bed on the floor. I’ll help, if you want.”

Hannah shook her head. “It’s not really that kind of tired, you know?”

Sam found her hand and squeezed it. She hated it when Hannah talked like that, but sometimes she just couldn’t help it. It was a stressful day; Hannah was allowed to get a little depressed.

She did end up getting up and settling into a little pile of blankets and pillows in the far corner, but she made Sam stay and finish the movie. All she wanted was to be alone, but she couldn’t be, so she decided to watch everyone instead. Sam and Josh both had their hands on the armrest, and though Hannah couldn’t be sure, it looked like maybe their fingers were intertwined, or at least touching. Chris was asleep in his seat and Matt and Ashley were whispering to each other while Jessica stared at the screen with tears shining on her cheeks. Emily was completely checked out, tapping at her phone screen, and Mike was watching Hannah and Beth more than the movie. He’d glance at Hannah every so often, then look at Beth, then look around the room or the ground or something, and then he’d start the cycle all over again. As usual, Hannah was desperate to get into his mind and see what he was thinking about, but she really was tired. Maybe she’d close her eyes, just for a second. .

* * *

Two batches of popcorn and another movie later, it seemed like everyone was about ready to go to sleep. Jessica stretched and sighed. What a fucking night. Every time she looked at Hannah, all curled up and traumatized in the corner, she literally felt like Satan. How was she supposed to know how everything would go down? Like, she knew Hannah would probably be a little upset, but not like this. And now there were monsters involved? Ridiculous.

She glanced at Mike while he stared firmly at the back of Beth’s head. A tiny, ugly part of Jessica reminded her that embarrassing Hannah was just supposed to be a way to get closer to Mike, and maybe she had meant for it to hurt that much. Once again, actually Satan. She spent the entirety of the two movies crying silently, wondering how she could be such a heinous bitch to her best friend’s sister over a guy. Well, not just a guy. Michael Ford Munroe, the hottest guy on the face of the earth. She’d been crushing hard for all three and a half years of high school, but she wouldn’t have dared tell anyone. Briefly, she considered telling Hannah in sophomore year, but decided against it. Hannah would just tell Beth and then it would become this whole big thing that she just really did not want to deal with. So she let her crush grow and grow until it drove to her to this?

That was fine. Blaming Mike was better than blaming herself. He went along with it, after all. Why should she take all of the blame? She looked at him again; yep, still staring at Beth. Obviously, they had their own prank going on, too. Josh and Hannah were in on it, otherwise Hannah wouldn’t have said she saw the monster and Josh wouldn’t have led them into the basement. But why? Why were they all crammed in here being all awkward and sad when they could just be doing that separately? She was fed up.

“Guys, this is stupid,” she said, standing up. Hannah woke up from her little pile of blankets, so Jessica avoided her eyes and looked at Mike instead, throwing up her arms in mock surrender. “You got us, Michael! Okay? There’s a big spooky zombie in the woods, ha, ha. I’m leaving.”

“Jessica, don’t do that,” Beth cautioned, bolting out of her seat. Sam and Josh followed. “Seriously, there’s something outside.”

Jessica huffed. “I said we get it, Beth. Whatever, you guys are stupid. I’m going to go make a pizza.”

“Me too,” Emily said, shoving Mike’s arm off of her. “I’m starving.”

Ashley shook Chris and glanced at Matt. “I’m kinda hungry too.”

Jessica hummed triumphantly and sauntered over to the door, adding an extra swing in her hips. Fake it till you make it, honey.

She grabbed the door handle, but Hannah interrupted.

“Don’t!” she screamed, holding her hand out like she was going to stop Jessica from across the room. “Jessica, seriously, don’t go out there. That thing will see you and then-”

“Oh shut up, Han,” she said dismissively before she could stop herself. Yikes. Way too harsh, Jess. “It’ll be fine. Know why? Because there’s nothing out there.”

“Mike,” Hannah whined, and Mike was shocked out of whatever Beth’s-head-induced trance he was in. “Mike, tell them.”

Mike fumbled. “No, seriously, guys. You can’t.”

Jessica turned the door handle, agonizingly slowly. “Can’t what? Do this?”

“Jessica,” Mike warned, stepping closer. “I’m not kidding around.”

“Step off, babe,” Emily growled, taking the other handle and shoving the door open.

They entered the basement, and the house was completely silent. No monsters or flamethrowers here. Jessica and Emily smiled at each other, maybe a little snootily, and sauntered up the stairs. She really was starving, and there was a sausage pizza in the freezer calling her name. She’d had enough of being scared and feeling like a shit head. They came to party, right? If there’s one thing Jessica could do, it was bring the party.

So they flipped on the lights and put Emily’s phone on the stereo, blasting dance music. Time to party this whole mess away.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's always calm before the storm. . .

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for this, guys.

Beth couldn’t decide who to be more stressed out about: the dumb asses dancing around and eating pizza in the kitchen, or Mike and Hannah sitting by the fireplace. Jess, Emily, Matt and Ashley were shouting and laughing and drinking even _more_  and were almost certainly going to get all of them killed with their noise, but Mike was over there with her sister and she couldn’t hear what they were talking about and it was driving her insane.

Sensing her distress, Sam put a hand on Beth’s arm. “Beth?”

Beth shot her a look. She couldn’t blame her for not believing them about what they saw in the forest, but she’d be lying if she said it didn’t hurt a little bit. It would be one thing if she didn’t believe Beth and Mike, but not believing Hannah was something entirely different.

Beth sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Sorry, Sam. I’m just kinda pissed off.”

“Yeah,” Josh growled, clutching the bottle he’d drained earlier in the evening. He looked ready to chuck it at someone. “Me too.”

Chris, sat next to Josh at the bar, clapped him on the back wordlessly. He seemed more or less sober, but he probably just didn’t know what to say. Chris was like that sometimes. Beth used to harbor the nastiest crush on him, almost full-blown Hannah status. Well, not _exactly_  like Hannah. Hannah was more “hearts and Mrs. Hannah Munroe” kind of thing and Beth was more “crude sexual cartoons and whispering vivid descriptions in Josh’s ear”, but it was a similar intensity. She really was gross about it, acting more like a middle school boy than a middle school girl, and it was something Josh brought up all the time, much to Chris’ embarrassment.

All this thought of crushes brought her back to Mike and Hannah. She looked okay. Damaged, but okay, and the look on Mike’s face looked pretty sincerely remorseful.  
The thing of it all was that it wasn’t like she and Mike were strangers. He and Hannah texted almost nonstop and hung out together inside and outside of school frequently. Mike was on a first name basis with their dogs. They went to PROM together for fuck’s sake. Well, not together-together, but that’s not the point. The point was that Mike was supposed to be Hannah’s _friend_. Why would he do something so stupid and shitty and awful?

“Don’t worry about it, Beth,” Sam said, following Beth’s eyes. “Just let them work it out. It seems like things are pretty under control over there.”

Beth turned her attention to the kitchen. “Wish I could say the same for these idiots,” she grumbled, looking at Jessica. How could she do that to Hannah? She had a crush on Mike, that much was obvious to Beth. They were best friends; how could she _not_  know? But crush or no crush, the plan was just plain stupid. Honestly, what was she hoping to accomplish? _Gee, Jessica, you’re a real bitch. That’s the kind of gal I want on MY arm!_

And no, Beth did not think Emily was a bitch. Maybe she was a little self-involved, sure, but she was intelligent and beautiful and ambitious and, most importantly, a really good friend. All of them were supposed to be good friends.

“Are you sure I’m not allowed to hit anybody?” Josh said into his hands, slumping in the bar stool. “Like, not even one punch?”

“Pretty sure you already got one in earlier, man,” Chris sighed, sipping the water that Sam forced him to drink.

Jessica approached. “Hey!” she yelled. Jessica got loud when she was drunk, and it was something Beth typically found hilarious and endearing. Right now, not so much. “You guys want pizza? There’s still, like. . . three slices left.”

“No, thanks,” Sam interjected before any of the others could respond. Jessica shrugged and wiggled her way over to the window to look at her hair.

In some ways, Beth envied her. It was just so easy for Jessica to check out like this and stop caring about stuff that was important. Everyone else’s irreverence made sense; it was easier for them to justify themselves, considering they weren’t the ones directly responsible for the prank. This was pretty much directly Jessica’s fault, and yet somehow all she cared about in that moment was how her hair looked. It was inconsiderate and really unhealthy, but damn would that be useful from time to time. Nobody likes to feel bad.

Beth laid her head down on the table and Josh reached across Sam to pet her hat.

“It’s okay, little sis. They’ll run out of steam soon and we can all just go to sleep and talk about this in the morning.”

“That’ll be quite the breakfast conversation,” Beth grumbled.

“Oh!” Josh said suddenly, withdrawing his hand. “I forgot to turn off the projector.” Beth peeped through the hole formed by the counter and her armpit and saw Josh smother some nervousness before turning to Sam. “Wanna help? I kinda freaked out at Matt and made a mess in there.”

“Dirty,” Sam joked, grinning at him. If Beth wasn’t so set on setting those two up, she might have married Sam herself. “Sure.”

“Don’t get too eager,” Josh responded, returning Sam’s flirtatious smile. “We have guests, Samantha.”

She laughed and followed him closely down the stairs into the basement, and Beth couldn’t help but smile a little. Even though everything else went to shit, at least _one_  of the things she and Han had hoped for actually happened.

She and Chris sat together in thoughtful silence before he turned to her, the look on his face undecipherable.

“You think that thing’s gonna come back?”

Beth was so surprised she almost didn’t respond. “What?”

“You know, that _thing_ ,” he said, scratching his ear. “The thing you and Hannah and Mike saw outside.”

Beth could have kissed him. “So you believe us?”

Chris shrugged. “Maybe it wasn’t a zombie monster. . . thing, or, or maybe it was, but,” he made eye contact. “Yeah, of course I believe you guys.”

Beth groaned in relief. “Ugh, _thank you_. God, I’m so freaked out about this. I can’t even imagine what Hannah-”

She was cut short by all of the lights shutting off and Ashley yelping. Emily’s music cut off, stereo no longer plugged into a viable energy source. Everyone in the lodge was frozen in fear.

“What just happened?” Ashley asked, edging closer to Matt.

“Everybody stay calm,” Mike said, rising and standing in front of Hannah. “It’s probably just the breaker.”

At that moment, Josh and Sam came up the stairs, flashlights handy.

“Is everyone okay up here?” Josh asked quickly, passing Chris and Beth flashlights to hand to the crowd in the kitchen. “What happened?”

Jess turned around, arms crossed over her chest defensively. “We don’t know. Everything just shut off.”

Josh seemed to drift off for a second before returning to himself. Beth wondered where he went. “Okay, well, just stay put and I’ll go flip some switches in the basement.”

He and Sam headed for the basement again, and Ashley found her way to Chris in the dark.

“This is really freaky you guys,” she whispered, reaching for his sweater to hold rather than his arm.

“Don’t worry, Ash,” Chris soothed, shining his flashlight around the kitchen. “Josh will flip the breaker and the lights will come on and everything will be fine, okay?”

His light landed on Jessica. Matt was reaching for her to hand her a flashlight.

 

There was a crash, a scream, and then Jessica was gone.

* * *

Hannah screamed.

“Jessica!” Matt and Emily shouted together. Matt hesitated only a moment before he flung open the sliding glass door and followed her into the darkness.

“Shit!” Mike hissed, wrapping one protective arm around Hannah.

“Matt!” Emily cried, rushing to the door frantically to look out into the storm. “Jessica!”

“What the fuck was that?” Josh said, bounding up the stairs.

Chris hurried to meet him. “Something just reached through the glass door and grabbed Jessica, man.”

“What?” Sam asked.

“It was the thing we saw outside, Josh!” Beth sobbed, looking at Hannah and Mike by the fireplace. “The monster!”

“What do we do? We can’t just stay here!” Emily shouted again, shaking by the door. “We have to do something!”

Mike shifted against Hannah, and she could tell he was irritated. “Like what, Emily? All run off into the storm to follow them?”

Emily recoiled in disgust. “Are you fucking kidding me, Michael? My best friend just got snatched by some monster! I’m not just going to sit here and do _nothing_ ,” she barked, marching to the couch to grab her coat.

“Emily, that is a bad idea,” Josh warned, holding out his hand. “You can’t go out there, you’ll freeze.”

“And Jessica will die!” Emily shot back. She looked around the room for help, for anyone to join her, but no one moved. “Fine! Fuck you!” she said, rushing out the door.

“Oh my gosh, oh my gosh!” Ashley moaned, hiding her face in Chris’ chest. “Fuck! What do we do?”

“Isn’t there a number for a ranger we could call or something?” Mike asked Josh, arm still draped over Hannah. She wanted to bury her face into his flannel and lose herself in his smell. She wanted to disappear and leave all this scary shit behind. Mike pulled her a little closer, and Hannah felt a little shocked that he had even noticed her anxiety spiking. Maybe he was more perceptive than she thought.

“Yeah, but our landline is down and there’s no cell service out here,” Josh panted, pacing around the room. “Nothing was supposed to go wrong, we weren’t- we weren’t supposed to need it.”

A shriek echoed through the trees, and in an instant the back door was shattered and two of the monsters were crawling all over the walls.

Ashley screamed, but Beth slapped her hand over her mouth.

“ _Don’t_. _Move_ ,” she muttered quietly. “Don’t fucking move a muscle.”

Hannah shook in Mike’s arms as she watched the creatures crawling through the lodge. Beth was accurate in her description; Hannah hadn’t really gotten a good look at the thing before, but it really did look like a spider zombie. They were hideous, but they seemed more focused on each other than they did on everyone else.

Hannah saw Beth catch Mike’s eye and nod her head almost imperceptibly at the now-busted back door. She felt Mike shake his head, but as the creatures scuttled closer to Beth and the others, Mike sighed and started scooching himself and Hannah closer to the door. The tiniest of whimpers escaped her lips, and Mike placed a gentle finger over her mouth.

They made it to the door when one of the things leaped for the other one and swiped at its throat.

“Fuck, run!” Mike hissed, clamping his hand around Hannah’s and tugging her behind him off into the snow.

Hannah dared one last look back at the lodge, and all she saw was Beth backing into the middle of the room, one of the creatures looming over her.

“No!” Hannah screamed, and Mike tightened his grip on her hand.

“There’s no time,” Mike shouted, pulling her as she tried to turn back. She wouldn’t stop, so he scooped her up off the ground by the armpits and looked straight into her eyes, shaking her. “Hannah! We gotta get to the guest cabin, okay? We need to get out of the cold.”

“Beth,” she sobbed, reaching weakly for the lodge.

“I know, I know, Han,” Mike said, breathing hard. “But we gotta go, okay?”

Hannah finally nodded and he put her back down. He took her hand and they kept running, but Hannah felt like she was somewhere else entirely. Maybe she was. Maybe this was all some ugly horrible dream she was having. Maybe she ran away and fell asleep in the snow and this was her last nightmare before dying of hypothermia. That was nicer than the truth.  
So she floated on the snow beneath them and followed where Mike led her. Soon she’d be warm. Soon this would all be over.

* * *

Beth was cornered. Not literally; she was trapped in the middle of the room with the disgusting, frozen beast staring right at her. She had been trying to inch her way to the door to follow after Hannah and Mike, but the fight ended in the apparent death of one of the zombie-things, and now the only one left had its eyes on her. At least, it seemed like it did. The “stand as still as physically possible” technique that had saved them outside was holding up so far, but she really did not need to test it any further.

She dared to flick her eyes to the stairs, where Ashley, Chris and Sam were creeping down, Josh at the rear. He tapped Sam on the shoulder and motioned for her to keep going, and Beth’s gut filled with dread. Oh, that fucking idiot. She wanted to shake her head at him, but she didn’t dare move with that thing breathing its rancid breath in her face. They stared at one another, Josh periodically looking down to check that the others had made it safely into the cinema room, for thirty unbearable seconds. Beth’s flashlight was pressed hard into her leg so that the light was muffled, and she wanted more than anything to run away, but not if Josh was about to do what she _knew_  he was about to do.

“Hey!” Josh shouted, predictably, and the monster’s head snapped to look at him. It screeched and Josh took off down the stairs. “Beth, go!”

Beth turned and sprinted out the back door, tears streaming down her face. What if he didn’t make it? What if it got in there and slaughtered them all? Fuck, what if it was just her now?

She looked around frantically for any sign of her sister or their friends when she came across a path that sort of split into two, both with footprints running down them.

“Shit,” Beth whispered, whipping her head back and forth between them. Whose was whose? Who did she want to find more? Fuck!

Something shrieked behind her and she took off to the right, following the mess of footprints hopefully left by someone she knew. She didn’t want to focus on staying alive if that meant ignoring everyone else, but she channeled Jessica and forced herself not to think about it.

Beth had been on the track team in freshman and sophomore year, so she retained her old form and tore through the woods, not looking back. There probably wasn’t anything back there that she wanted to see, anyway. All that mattered now was finding Mike and Hannah or Jessica, Matt, and Emily and getting all of them the fuck off of Mount Washington.

“Matt!” a muffled voice called through the trees. “Matt, is that you?”

“Emily!” Beth cried, searching frantically for the source of the voice. “Emily, it’s Beth!” She rushed forward, almost blind from the snow, and almost bowled Emily over.

“Shit!” Emily shouted, catching both of them. “Oh my god,” she sobbed, crushing Beth to her chest. “Oh my god, what happened?”

Beth wiped her face, trying to avoid freezing her eyelashes together. “Two of the monsters came into the lodge. Mike and Hannah ran outside and Josh and everyone else ran back into the basement.”

“Oh god, oh no,” Emily groaned, resting her head on Beth’s chest. “I lost Matt and Jess, Beth. I can’t see where they went anymore. It’s too dark.”

Beth pulled her away. “I have this flashlight now. Let’s keep looking.”

Emily wiped her quickly freezing tears and sniffled. She put herself back together remarkably quickly, and Beth felt a surge of affection for her.

“Alright, Beth. Let’s get the fuck out of here.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam, Josh, Chris, and Ashley discover the ruins beneath the lodge. Matt and Jessica search for help.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enjoy!

Josh dove into the room and Chris and Sam slammed the doors behind him, locking them quickly. A powerful thump pounded against the door and Ashley let out a quick scream.

“Into the basement, go, go!” Josh cried, scrambling to get off the ground. He took the lead, Chris taking the rear and shutting the door behind them. Just as he turned the lock, Sam heard the doors to the cinema room splinter and fly open.

“Fuck!” she cried, sprinting after her friends. “Josh, where do we go?”

He didn’t slow his pace. “Just follow me!” he shouted, tearing through the narrow hallway and down the crumbling steps. Sam’s foot caught on a weak spot and she tripped, almost landing on Josh and knocking them both to the ground.

“Come on!” Chris cried, helping her up and pulling her forward with the rest of them. They tore down the rest of the steps and into the cold basement. Sam had been coming up to the lodge for the winter getaway for the past four years, but she never spent much time in the basement. Even so, she had no idea where they were going. When they got to the boiler, they took a sharp right.

“The wine cellar?” Ashley shrieked, smacking Josh’s arm. “Are you crazy? This is a dead end!”

“No, it’s not,” Josh hissed, knocking her arm off of him. He reached above one of the shelves of wine and retrieved a doorknob. “Shut the fuck up or that thing will kill us!”

He shoved the doorknob into the ancient-looking wooden door and yanked it open, metal hinges squealing with disuse. The four of them crashed inside and Sam slid the metal lock closed, yanking off the doorknob for good measure. They crept backwards, dead silent, waiting for the creature to follow them. After minutes of waiting, petrified, Sam took a slow, deep breath.

“I think we lost it.”

Chris turned to Josh and shoved him. “Not cool telling Ash to shut up like that, man.”

Josh scoffed, but it was Sam who answered.

“Cool it, Chris,” she snapped, holding her hands between them. “We were all just scared.”

“Yeah,” Ashley said quietly, rubbing her arm. “It’s fine, Chris.”

“We need to go back,” Josh said suddenly, marching right up to Sam to snatch the doorknob out of her hand. She pulled away.

“Josh, that thing will rip our heads off,” Sam sighed, trying to soften her tone. “It’ll be fine. You saw Beth get out, right?”

Josh growled and laughed angrily. “Doesn’t matter. She and Hannah and everyone else are out in the middle of a snowstorm. They’ll be dead by morning if we don’t find them,” he finished, voice shrinking away into nothing. He wrapped his arms around his head, cradling himself like a little boy.

“Josh,” Chris started weakly. “We can’t go back through the lodge, man. I mean, who knows if that thing is really gone or not?”

Sam shined her flashlight through darkness that was thick with dust. The light rippled over crumbling wallpaper and rotting wood. In their panic, none of them had really bothered to look around. Sam’s chest felt tight and the first flickers of real panic lapped at her heels. Wherever they were, it looked like it was moments away from collapsing and trapping them inside.

“What is this place?” she muttered, turning to Josh.

Josh sighed, but it sounded more like a sob. “I- I don’t know, I’ve never been down here before. Mom and dad never let us, which. . .”

“Kinda makes sense,” Ashley finished, shining her own flashlight around the room. After a beat, her eyebrows drew together in thought. “Hang on a sec, didn’t this mountain used to have a sanitorium on it?”

“Yeah, but that’s a few miles from here,” Josh shrugged, clearly not very invested in this line of conversation. “This isn’t it.”

Ashley shook her head. “No, that’s not what I meant. It was billed as, like, some winter getaway, right? ‘Blackwood Pines Hotel and Sanitorium’.”

“Oh my god, you’re right,” Sam breathed, running three fingers down one of the peeling walls. “No wonder the lodge is so huge. _Look_  at this place.”

Chris shook his head, trying to gather his thoughts. “Okay, so, does that mean there’s another way out of here?”

“I think it’s worth a shot,” Ashley said breathlessly. Sam was proud of how composed she was. Maybe she had a tendency to overreact, but she was proving herself under real pressure. “There’s no freaking way I’m going back up into that lodge, not with that nasty thing crawling all over the place ready to eat us. As far as I’m concerned, this is our only option.”

“Makes sense,” Chris said quickly, cracking his neck to wind up for whatever was coming next. “Let’s do it.”

“Okay,” Josh murmured, gesturing for Chris to lead the way. Ashley followed, and once they were both in front, Josh took Sam’s hand.

Sam’s heart jumped, but she shook it off. She shot him a questioning look, and the expression she received in response gave her heart another leap. Josh’s distress was so acute in his eyes that Sam could feel it in her bones. Beth and Hannah being out of his reach -too far away to protect- was eating him up, and he looked worse than Sam had ever seen him. Josh acted strangely sometimes, got in “moods,” as Bob called them, where he’d seem confused or angry for no reason. Sometimes he’d be in his room, sobbing and sobbing, and Sam and the twins had to pretend not to hear. This was worse.

Sam frowned. “It’s going to be okay, Josh,” she whispered. “We’ll find the twins and find everyone else and then we’ll all get out of here, alright?”

He sighed a shaky sigh. “Thanks, Sammy,” he breathed, voice hard.

They wandered through the creaking hallways and down weak, sagging stairs. Sam coughed and tried to stop herself from thinking about all of the asbestos they were probably inhaling. If the hotel was open around the same time as the sanitorium, it was over fifty years old, and it seemed like the Washingtons hadn’t changed it a bit, so the likelihood of poisonous insulation was pretty good.

“So, what’s the plan when we get out of this haunted carnival ride?” Chris asked conversationally. Sam liked that about Chris; even in a horrifying nightmare-come-to-life, he never lost that easygoing, funny charm of his. It made her feel a little better.

Josh squeezed her hand for support, and she squeezed back. “We find everybody and get to the cable car station,” he said quickly, obviously prepared with his answer. “It’s only a few hours until dawn. We- we just gotta get out of here.”

“Agreed,” Sam said, shaking his hand lightly.

As they made their way through the ruined building hidden beneath the lodge, it slowly became more and more industrial-looking, with more rooms and stairs to navigate.

“Where does it end?” Chris groaned lightly, and Sam could hear the unease in his voice. She herself had been wondering the same thing.

“This is so creepy,” Ashley whined, taking hold of Chris’ sleeve. “Why doesn’t it look like a hotel anymore?”

“I think this might be the sanitorium,” Josh whispered, placing his palm on the cold, concrete wall.

“That’s good though, right?” Chris said nervously. “That means there is a way out of here.”

Ashley made a little noise of distress. “Yeah, but it’s going to be through a creepy abandoned insane asylum.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Josh said again, shaking his head. “As long as we can get out of here, I don’t care what we have to go through.”

He looked at Sam, and they squeezed each other’s hand. He was right; no matter what, they would all get through this together.

* * *

Icy, sharp wind whipped the skin on Matt’s face, and he squinted in the darkness.

“Jessica!” he cried, desperately scanning the trees for signs of movement. “Jessica!”

A piercing cry, a human cry, rang through the air to his left, and he sprinted to the source of the noise. He ducked through the trees and nearly tripped over the uneven boards of a little covered bridge before he saw the outline of a figure in the darkness.

“Matt!” the figure called, and he squinted to see Jessica standing in front of him, slowly backing away from the treeline. Her clothes were tattered and torn, and she was covered in scratches and blood. As Matt ran to her, he saw the sign behind her: DANGER, CLIFF. Oh, shit.

“Jessica, stop!” he shouted, reaching for her, but it was too late.

Her heel slipped over the edge and she screamed. Matt scrambled to the edge, and saw Jessica dangling from a tree root on jutting from the rocks.

“Matt,” she sobbed with relief. “Matt, help me!”

“Reach out your hand, I’ll pull you up!” he assured, reaching down for her as far as he could. “Jessica, you have to trust me!”

“Okay,” she cried.

She hyperventilated and reached up with her free hand, struggling to grab his hand. The root snapped, and with one final lunge, Matt caught her just as she fell. She screamed again, now grabbing him with both hands. He groaned and pulled with all his might until he finally hauled her back onto the ground. Jessica fell on top of him, and they laid there, her head on his chest, panting for thirty seconds before she finally looked at him.

“Thank you,” she said weakly, patting his chest. “Thank you.”

“I got you, Jess,” Matt soothed, rubbing her back. “I’ve got you now.”

They rose to their feet, but Jessica seemed pretty badly hurt, and Matt had to give her a lot of help. They dusted themselves off and looked back into the trees.

Jessica took a shaky breath. “I don’t know what happened,” she murmured, voice weak. “It dragged me all the way here and then it just- it just ran away.”

“Where do we go?” Matt asked, feeling his heart pounding in his chest. “The lodge?”

Jessica shook her head, panicked. “No, no, no, no,” she moaned, holding her head. “We can’t go back there, it’s not safe.”

Matt groaned exasperatedly. “Well, neither is the woods. We need to get inside somewhere, Jess.”

“Where?” she sobbed, wrapping her arms around herself. “I can’t walk very far, Matt. I- I really think I’m hurt.”

Not far away up the mountain, a light switched on. “Hey,” Matt said, shaking her a little. “Did you see that?”

“What is it?”

Matt shook his head. “I don’t know, but it might be a building. We should check it out.”

Jessica whined in distress. “But what if it’s not?”

“It’s our best shot,” Matt said with a shrug. “We need to get you out of the cold. It’s okay, I’ll help you walk.”

Jessica sobbed again, but nodded. “Okay, okay. Let’s go.”

“Okay,” Matt said gently. He took her arm and carefully draped it over his shoulder, supporting her as she limped along with him.

After a while, Jessica asked, “Did you see what happened to everyone else?”

Matt shook his head. “No. I. . . didn’t really have time. As soon as that thing grabbed you, I followed you. I don’t know, I just. . . I knew I had to help you. I didn’t even think about it.”

Jessica gave one short, watery laugh. “Thank you, Matt.”

The longer they walked, the worse Jessica got. Soon, she was wheezing and could hardly walk at all. Their path was only growing steeper, and Matt knew they would have to stop soon.

“You okay?” he asked, hefting her a little higher on his shoulder. “Do you need to stop?”

Jessica shook her head. “We can’t. We can’t stop. We have to make it there.”

Matt couldn’t let doubt stop him from believing her. “Jess, you can barely breathe.”

“We can’t stop,” she repeated, but as she said it, she lost her footing and fell to her knees. As she hit the ground, she cried in pain.

“That’s it,” Matt said, crouching next to her. “I’m picking you up.”

“No,” she protested through her tears. “I can do it, I can walk.”

Matt exhaled fiercely. “No you can’t. I’m going to carry you and you can’t stop me.”

All Jessica could do was groan weakly, and Matt scooped her off the ground. Typically, carrying Jessica would have been easy for Matt. He was strong from football training, but in this cold, he could barely feel his arms, so keeping Jessica from slipping felt impossible. Still, he knew he needed to. They were so close to the source of the light.

“Are we going to die, Matt?” Jessica whispered in his ear, her head rolling against his chest.

Matt pulled her closer to him and drew his brows with determination.

“No. Neither of us are going to die up here. I won’t let us.”

Finally, through the snow, a massive structure loomed over them. A harsh bright light flipped on and illuminated the ground around them, nearly blinding them both.

“Yes!” Matt whispered, rushing forward. He shook Jessica in his arms. “Look, Jess. It’s a radio tower. We can call for help!”

Jessica made a tiny noise, but could barely keep her eyes open. Matt pushed on. All he had to do was get her out of the cold and she’d be okay. They just had to get warm and they’d be okay.

They made it to the base of the tower and Matt sighed. Well, shit. Three ladders separated them from the top of the tower. Matt looked at Jessica. Her eyes were closed and her lips looked blue. He shook her awake.

“Jessica, I need to put you on my back to climb the ladders,” he said quietly. “But you need to hold on, okay?”

She nodded weakly, so Matt shifted her over and slung her arms over his shoulders. Jessica whimpered but held tight. Alright, time to climb. Time to save their asses.

The climb was grueling. Matt’s arms felt like jello, like they’d go gooey and drop them at any moment, but he gripped the rungs like their lives depended on it because they did. He could have cried when they finally reached the latched door to the tower.

“Look, Jess,” he panted, pushing the little door open. “We made it. We made it inside.”

She didn’t respond, so Matt pulled them up as quickly as he could and drew Jessica into his arms, rubbing his hands up and down her arms in a desperate attempt to warm her up. He scanned the room; the radio was on a desk with a padded chair. He dragged Jessica to her feet again and rested her in the chair. When he flipped the switch, the radio didn’t respond. Matt sighed.

“Jess, I gotta go find the breaker and turn on the power, okay?” he said, brushing loose hairs out of her face. “I’m going to be right back. I’m not leaving you.”

Jessica cracked her eyelids open and nodded, which Matt took as a good sign. Still though, he wanted to hurry. Leaving Jessica on her own for too long scared him, so he rushed outside to find the breaker. Looking through the window, he saw the lights flicker on when he flipped the switch and heard the radio crackle to life. A box with a flare gun was next to the breaker, so Matt grabbed that too. Briefly, he considered firing it off, but decided that waiting until he contacted a ranger through the radio made more sense. When he came back inside, Jessica was sitting up with her knees tucked up to her chest. Matt felt himself relax minutely.

“Hey,” he said, coming up behind her. “You feeling better?”

“Warmer,” she answered somberly. Matt nodded.

“Good. Okay, I’m gonna call for help,” he sighed, approaching the radio. He rolled his neck, trying to ease the tension seizing his shoulders. This would work. It had to.

Matt wasn’t really sure how radios worked, if he was being honest. He fiddled with a few knobs before finally finding the one that filled the room with a ranger’s voice. Matt slammed on the big button of the microphone.

“Hello, hello, can you hear me?”

On the other line, only static.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Beth and Emily head back to the lodge and Mike and Hannah find the guest cabin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry it's been so long since I've updated, I just really hit a creative wall for a while. I've been writing this story in bits and pieces in a million different notebooks, so compiling those took a while too. Also, sorry Mike and Hannah's section is so long and Beth and Em's is so short. That's just how I'm feeling. Anyway, enjoy!

Snow was falling much slower now, and the clouds were parting to reveal a bright, waxing moon, so bright that for a moment, Beth felt like they didn’t even need the flashlight.

“What do we do?” Emily panted, waving the light frantically and scanning the woods for movement. “Where do we go?”

Beth shivered. Wherever they were going to go, they needed to get there fast. “I don’t know,” she said, glancing over Emily’s shoulder. “Should we try to follow Jess and Matt?”

Emily sighed and sniffled, shaking her head. “I don’t know. I can’t see their footprints at all anymore. I don’t even know if I’ve been going the right way.”

Great. “Uh, okay,” Beth sighed, rubbing her temples. “So, so what do we do instead?”

Emily wrapped her arms around herself and looked away. Uh oh. Whatever Emily was about to say, Beth knew she wasn’t going to like it.

“It’s freezing out here, Beth,” she said weakly, flipping her hair out of her face nervously. “Maybe . . . maybe we should just go back to the lodge.”

Her first instinct was to protest, but Beth stopped to think about it. She was aching with worry about Josh, Sam, Chris, and Ashley. Maybe the others had come back too? Mike would definitely want to get Hannah inside somewhere, so maybe . . .?

There was no way Jess and Matt were there, but they could find their way back eventually. It might not be a bad idea to just wait for everyone there. It was ridiculous, completely implausible, to believe that Jess was even alive, let alone that she _and_ Matt would somehow make it back to the lodge. Beth wanted to cry, but now wasn’t the time. Maybe it was stupid to cling onto hope, but at least it was something.

“Okay,” she nodded at Emily, smothering her tears. “Okay, let’s go back. Let’s go back and get the keys to the cable car station and wait as long as we need to so everyone can come back and we can all get the fuck out of here. Okay?”

Emily nodded, sniffling. She scanned the trees. “Wait, shit, what direction did you come from?”

Beth felt a rush of panic and tilted Emily’s wrist to shine the light through the forest around them, searching frantically for any familiar features. Finally, she spotted the large, gnarled tree root she almost tripped over in her rush to reach Emily. The further the light shone up the path, the more relieved Beth felt. Thank god.

“It’s this way,” she said, grabbing Emily’s hand. Emily pulled away.

“Are you sure?” she questioned, leaning over her shoulder and checking out the path for herself. “I could have sworn . . .”

“I’m not a hundred percent sure, no,” Beth answered honestly, rubbing her palms on her legs nervously. “But we should keep moving. Stay warm, you know?”

They told kids in elementary school that if they ever got lost in the woods, they were supposed to stay in one spot so that rescue could find them. Beth had a feeling that if she and Em stayed in the same spot, a freaky zombie would find them. Moving was better.

“Okay,” Emily relented, allowing Beth to take her hand. “I trust you.”

Beth was supposed to be the “cool” twin. She was intelligent, as smart as Hannah for sure, but in a different way. She _got_ people, and they responded positively to that. She gave off the impression that she was cool as a cucumber all the time, that she could be the voice of reason.

All of that was horseshit, and only Beth’s closest friends knew it. One time, their old dog Anubis got his paw caught in some of dad’s fishing hooks. The rest of the Washington family, including Sam, was holding him down, grabbing the wire cutters, and keeping the other dogs away while Beth sat on the stairs and screamed into her hands. She cried for five hours, even after the hooks were out and Anubis had been to the vet and everyone else had largely forgotten the entire incident.

It felt like she was dying. Hannah thought maybe she had anxiety, but Beth didn’t really _feel_ anxious, at least not all the time. It was just anytime something went wrong.

Which is why she was so damn impressed with herself in that moment. Here she was, boldly leading Emily through the forest while they are stalked by some horror movie monster. Emily, fearless leader Emily, was shaking behind her while Beth kept her fear suspended over her head and out of the way. Sure, a scream was perched on her throat and her heart was burning through her ribcage, but it felt different than any other time. It felt a lot less like dying and more like the fight to live.

After a few minutes of walking, a massive shadow loomed in the distance. The girls looked at each other with shaky, relieved smiles.

“Oh, thank god,” Emily groaned, dropping Beth’s hand and taking the lead. “Let’s get inside.”

Beth stopped her, grabbing her arm. “ _Wait_. We should be quiet. That thing could still be in there.”

Emily nodded and they both crouched, creeping along the side of the lodge. “Is it really a monster?” she hissed, skeptical. “I mean, you saw it, right? It wasn’t just a guy?”

“Yes, I saw it,” Beth snapped, both a little too forceful and too loud.

They rounded the corner: nothing. No movement inside the lodge, either. Beth stood up slowly, then swung open the back door. Inside, the lights were out.

“What does this thing even look like?” Emily whispered, grabbing Beth’s sleeve.

As they crept inside, Beth stopped abruptly to avoid tripping on something, something . . . oh, god. In the middle of the room, the crumpled body of one of the beasts was still sitting there, oozing some disgusting black fluid all over the carpet.

Beth felt Emily swallow a scream.

“That’s what they look like,” she said solemnly, staring down at the corpse. She shivered. Impulsively, she gave the body a little nudge. The instant her foot touched it, her heart skipped a beat.

This was real. This was real, and their friends were somewhere out there being  _hunted_ by these things. 

If Beth had been more religious, she might have prayed. Instead, she just repeated words over and over in her head:

_Get back to the lodge. We're waiting for you._

If she believed hard enough, maybe it would work. It had to.

* * *

 The snow was thinning, and in the distance, Mike saw the tiniest of red lights, weak and hardly visible in the dying storm. He looked over his shoulder at Hannah, who was still sticking close behind him as they ran.

“You see that?” he panted, looking back at the light and slowing down a little.

“Yeah,” Hannah gasped. They were both athletic, fit people, but damn, the air out there was fucking freezing in Mike’s lungs. It was like being stabbed with a bunch of tiny ice-knives. Icicles. That was the word. He shook his head. “I think it’s the gate out to the guest cabin,” Hannah continued, sniffling.

Mike could have cried when they reached the little metal gate. “Oh, thank you God,” he said with relief, dropping her hand and resting on the stone wall. “Let’s just hide in there.”

Hannah’s teeth were chattering. “The— the red light means the gate is locked. We need to t-turn on the generator.”

Mike shrugged. “Let’s just climb over.”

Hannah had her arms wrapped around herself, covering her exposed skin from the whipping cold. Mike wanted to smack himself in the forehead. Not your best night, Mikey.

“Jeez, Han, you’ve gotta be freezing. Here,” he said, slipping out of his flannel. “Put this on.”

In any other situation, Hannah would have been too embarrassed to accept right away, but now she just about ripped the shirt from his hands to slip around her shaking body. She couldn’t look at him. “Thanks.”

Mike nodded. “No problem,” he replied, even as he shuddered. It was significantly colder in his undershirt, but at least it had long sleeves. He turned and put his hands on his hips. “Alright, let’s hop this fence.”

Hannah was twisting her thumbs together. “I don’t think I can.”

“Han, I don’t think hanging around to start the generator is a great idea right now,” Mike said quickly. Being a successful leader meant thinking on your feet and coming up with solutions under pressure. He so had this. “Okay, how about this: I climb over first and then help lift you over. Sound good?”

Hannah was obviously still reluctant, but she nodded. Mike let his heart swell a little. Sometimes, dealing with Hannah could be such a pain. She was insecure and indecisive, which was irritating when it came to making plans or, you know, _doing_ stuff. Now, she was all in. She was helping him and following him without having to dawdle around and think about it for nine years. He liked her for it.

“Alright, Mikey,” he muttered to himself, pulling his sleeves over his hands so the freezing metal of the gate wouldn’t burn his skin. “Let’s do this,” he grunted, hefting himself over without much difficulty. When he landed, he took a moment to dust himself off before turning around to present himself to Hannah, as if to say, “see?” He held his arms out for her. “Come on, Han. It’s okay.”

“Okay,” she said quietly, stepping into the gate.

At first, Mike put his hands under her armpits to drag her over, but stopped to reevaluate. If he did that, she’d bang up her knees on the way over, and that would put a cramp in their “get to the fucking guest cabin as soon as fucking possible” plan. So instead, he leaned far over the fence, face next to Hannah’s warm stomach, and wrapped his arms around her, one at the waist and one just under her ass. Now when he lifted her, he turned her knees and slipped her over the gate with ease.

He set her down and she looked at his eyes for the first time since the prank. They were chest to chest, faces inches away from each other. Mike could hardly breathe. Hannah smelled like lavender.

Mike swallowed thickly. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

The moment Hannah shook her head, a monster shrieked in the distance.

“I think that’s our cue,” Mike said quickly, taking her hand once more and pulling her away from the wall.

“Should we run?” Hannah asked, scanning the forest behind them as Mike pushed on at a brisk walk. “It sounded far away . . .”

Mike thought for a second. “I don’t think we need to run, but we can’t stand around here all day.”

“Okay,” Hannah nodded, speeding up to take the lead. “Come on, I know a shortcut.”

If he forgot himself, it was almost kind of fun following Hannah through the woods. They ducked under fallen trees and hopped over stones like they were little kids, exploring the wilderness. It was stupid, _crazy_ even, but Mike felt safe. After ten minutes, they saw moonlight reflecting off the little windows of the cabin.

“Finally,” Hannah breathed, tugging him along with more vigor.

She slipped the spare key from behind the little welcome sign and pulled the door open in a hurry. They rushed inside, but the second Mike shut the door behind them, a suffocating tension settled over the space. He stared at the doorknob, unable to look at Hannah now that they weren’t running for their lives. When he finally turned around, Hannah had her back to him, too.

Mike cleared his throat. “Do you want to, uh, sit down? I can, uh, build us a fire . . . if you’re cold . . .”

Hannah wrapped her arms around herself, obviously freezing, but said nothing. God, he was a real piece of shit. She turned slowly and, without looking at him, took a seat on the dusty old couch by the fire. She looked like she’d shatter into a million pieces if he tried to touch her, so he set out to find fire-building supplies instead. While he did, he thought. He thought about Hannah.

They met because of Beth. If he was being honest, the only reason Mike even started talking to Beth is because she was the student council secretary that year and he thought she was kinda hot. Of course, he knew about both of them before that. When the children of Hollywood’s “King of Horror” went to your high school, people noticed.

The first time he hung out with everyone, he kind of _forgot_ he even came there for Beth. At that time, it was only Chris, Josh, Sam, Beth, Hannah, and Emily, no Jessica or Ashley or Matt yet. Obviously, he was attracted to Emily right away. She was smoking hot, intelligent, and clearly knew how to handle herself. The more he hung out with them, the more time he spent trying to impress her and win her over. It was only when that started to work that he started paying more attention to the others, namely Hannah.

He liked her. A _lot_. Not in a romantic way, not really. Like, she was pretty and stuff, in that quirky, bookish weird girl way. The more he got to know her, though, the more beautiful she became. He liked that she worked her ass off at tennis. He liked how much she so deeply loved her family. She loved cooking and singing and drawing and she was damn good at all three. Without Mike even really realizing it, Hannah stopped being Josh and Beth’s nerd sister and started being his _friend_.

He spent a lot of time with Hannah, now that he thought about it. They were always studying or working on StuCo stuff together, at school or his house or her house or wherever. In summer, he’d sneak her into the pool he lifeguarded for and let her eat dippin dots for free, and she’d let him come play with dogs at the Humane Society with her. It wasn’t weird when they were together, just the two of them.

He knew that she liked him. Of course, he knew. It was so uncomfortable whenever they were with the others. He felt their eyes burning him, analyzing him and Hannah’s every moves. Emily was the worst of them. What, he wasn’t allowed to have female friends? She never said anything out loud, but every time Hannah looked at him with the barest inch of fondness in her eyes, Emily’s face said it all. What the hell was he supposed to do in that situation?

Maybe that’s what did it. Fuck, man, when Jessica first approached them all with her prank plan, he could have hit something. It was so royally screwed up, and he knew it, but . . . god _damn_ it, Hannah. Why couldn’t she just _tell_ him? He couldn’t return her feelings, but he was so sick of seeing her so miserable and embarrassed all the time. He just wanted her to tell him so he could say no.

So the prank transformed in his mind into the “easy out” he’d been searching for. If this didn’t make things clear, nothing would. It wasn’t supposed to go so wrong. He was stupid not to realize how deep her crush on him actually was. What a shitty, shit thing to do.

The fire got going and Hannah visibly relaxed, but Mike knew he should still keep his distance. She wasn’t ready and besides, he was still too pissed off at himself to even go near her. He spotted a little book on the end table by the fireplace. How about that, to pass the time? Maybe he’d just sit in the rocking chair and dig into this book about . . . Native American myths. Whatever.

He flipped through the pages absently, trying to ignore the feeling of Hannah’s eyes on him. Mike scanned over the same page four times before he finally absorbed what he was reading.

“Jesus Christ on a bicycle,” he whispered, the gears in his mind churning so fast he swore steam was ready to burst out his ears. “Hannah, you gotta look at this.”

He launched himself out of his seat and down next to her, shoving the book in front of her face. She took it from him with some irritation.

“What is it?”

“Look, right there,” he said, urgently jabbing the page. “The Wendigo. They’re cannibal monsters with ‘long, spidery limbs’ that live in ‘the mountains of Canada and the Great Lakes region of the United States.’ That’s what we saw, Han, I’m sure of it.”

Hannah’s eyes darted down the paragraph and over the drawings. “Oh my god,” she said, flipping the page. “It’s gotta be.”

“Oh Jesus, oh what the fuck,” Mike groaned, running his hands through his hair.

“’The spirit of the Wendigo possesses those who commit acts of cannibalism,’” Hannah recited quickly. She flipped over a couple pages, scanning. “They hunt in the winter, only at night, and . . . god.”

“What?” Mike groaned again. He was already ready to be done with this.

Hannah couldn’t look at him, too absorbed in the text to acknowledge him. “They can- they can mimic people’s voices to lure others into the woods. It’s, like, part of how they hunt or whatever.”

“That’s fucked—” Mike began, but stopped, shushing Hannah. “Wait. Did you hear that?”

They listened.

A scream.

Beth’s.

“Oh my god,” Hannah whimpered, covering her mouth with her hands. Hot tears slipped down her cheeks. “Beth!”

“Wait,” Mike hissed, placing two firm hands on her arms to calm her. “It might not be her.”

“Hannah!” The voice called, echoing through the trees. “Hannah!”

“Mike!” Hannah whined, squirming in his grasp. “Mike, please!”

Impulsively, he pulled her to his chest and wrapped her in a hug. At least this way she wouldn’t do anything stupid like run out into the woods and directly into some monster’s mouth.

“Hannah, I need you to trust me,” he whispered, pulling back to look at her face. She winced and Mike sighed. “Fuck, I know, bad word choice, but still. Just . . . wait, okay?”

They huddled closer and froze, suffocating in the silence. Hannah leaned into him and he felt the wild urge to _kiss_ _her_ , what the fuck?

“Hannah—” The voice, Josh’s voice, started, but ended abruptly with an echoing howl.

“Did the book say anything about wolves?” Mike whispered, his mouth centimeters from Hannah’s earlobe. He could feel her body heat on his lips. She shook her head minutely.

A shriek. A growl. With each noise, Hannah and Mike flinched. All of the sudden, silence.

“Is it gone?” Hannah whispered, still too terrified to move.

Mike shook his head. “Dunno. Want to check it out?”

Hannah’s eyes were wet and she shook with fear, but she nodded. “I think we should.”

Wordlessly, Mike stood up. Hannah shocked him by standing too, and shocked him again by taking his hand. He remembered they were friends.

Mike’s heart pounded in his ears as he approached the door and terror seized him. Fuck, just look through the blinds, Michael! Hannah beat him to it, peeking through the shitty blinds covering the cabin door. She gasped.

“What, what?” Mike demanded, trying to peer around her.

“There’s a wolf outside,” she breathed.

Mike’s stomach did a backflip. “Really? What’s it doing?”

Hannah swallowed. “It’s- it’s just _standing_ there, like it’s . . . like it’s looking at me.”

Hannah moved aside so Mike could take a look for himself. When he did, he saw a massive black wolf perk its ears and plop itself down, panting like a puppy. “What the fuck? It’s like a dog.”

The wolf approached and both Hannah and Mike flinched back, but all it did was drag its claws gently down the door, whining while it did.

“I think he wants to come in,” Hannah whispered, squeezing Mike’s hand.

He scoffed. “Of course he wants to come in, Hannah. I’m sure he’d love to waltz in so he can maim and devour us. It would be the highlight of his evening.”

Hannah shook her head. “I don’t think it’s like that. This isn’t normal. He’s all alone, and lone wolves don’t survive long without a pack. No wolf would come this close to a building, _especially_ if it was alone,” she explained matter-of-factly. “I think we should let it in.”

Mike furrowed his eyebrows. “How do you know all this stuff?”

Hannah shrugged sheepishly. “Teen Wolf.”

Mike’s panic was briefly replaced with exasperation. “Can we not base our decisions on what does and doesn’t happen in episodes of Teen Wolf?”

The wolf whined again.

“Well, we have to do something,” Hannah stressed, peeking through the blinds again. “It doesn’t look like it’s going anywhere anytime soon.”

“Okay, then we stay inside by the nice cozy fire and let the wolf get bored and slink off into a cave or something. We’re not letting it in and we’re not going out there, okay, Han?”

Claws scratched on the door, just as gently as before.

Hannah looked at him with an undecipherable expression for a long time before she grabbed the doorknob.

“Hannah, don’t!”


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Josh, Sam, Ashley, and Chris find the sanatorium, Matt and Jess take a tumble, and Beth and Emily set off to find the others.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I AM SO SORRY FOR NOT UPDATING IN SO LONG. Honestly, I forgot what happened in the game and my brother traded our copy in (without telling me. What a butthole) so I had no way to refresh my memory. . . until I remembered that YouTube is a thing. Oops. Anyway, I hope you enjoy!

It was getting colder the further they ventured through the hidden lower levels of the lodge, and Sam was becoming more and more grateful that Josh’s big, warm hand was tangled tightly in hers. It was dark, but she could just barely make out her own breath curling like smoke into the freezing air of the basement.

A sudden panic lanced through her chest. Was this the right decision? Maybe they should just go back. Josh said he’d never been down here before. What were they getting into? Ugh, she needed to stop. She took a deep breath and allowed the flicker of doubt to dissolve. No, this was the right thing to do. They needed to get out of the lodge and off of Mount Washington, and they had to find the others. The only thing that would get them all out of this was action, so something was better than nothing.

Josh looked haggard and weary next to her, his footsteps dragging across the concrete floor, and Sam’s heart broke for him. They were all tired and scared, but focusing on his suffering distracted her from her own, at least.

Finally, they reached a pair of massive, industrial metal doors at the end of a long hallway. It was nonsense, but Sam felt the prickle of something watching them whisper on her neck and squeezed Josh’s hand tighter. He didn’t react.

“Think this is it?” Ashley asked with a shiver.

Chris shifted closer to her. “I guess so,” he said with a sigh, gripping one handle. “You guys ready?”

Josh nodded weakly.

“Let’s do it,” Sam agreed, glancing quickly at her friend. He was clearly a wreck: his heavy lidded eyes looked sunken and he was shaking in the cold. She wanted to do more, to hug him or something, but there was no time to waste. The longer they waited, the worse the odds were for the rest of their friends. There would be time for comfort once everyone was safe, but right now, shit needed to get done.

“Hang on,” Ashley said, resting her hand on Chris’ arm to stop him. “What if someone comes back to the lodge and we’re gone? We should leave something to tell them where we went.”

Chris blanched. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. There is no way I’m not locking that door behind us. If that thing decides to come down here and follow us-”

“We don’t have to leave the door wide open,” Josh intercepted tiredly. “We just have to let them know that we made it out of the lodge alright. Hopefully. . .” his wavered and he cleared his throat. “Hopefully, whoever it is will know to get out of there. I wish we had paper or something.”

Chris nodded morosely. “Yeah.”

“It’s not a bad idea, though,” Sam said. She scanned the floor, looking for something to mark the ground with. Scooping up a small rock, she carved a big, fat arrow on the ground pointing towards the sanatorium doors. “There.”

Chris tugged on the door with no success. He tried again, this time yanking with both hands, and finally the ancient hinges squealed as the door slowly eased open. A fresh gust of cold air stung Sam’s cheeks, and she took a deep breath. This time, Josh was the one to squeeze her hand. She couldn’t help herself: a tiny smile pulled at the corner of her mouth as the four of them crept into the sanitorium, Chris locking the door behind them. Josh, on the other hand, wore a troubled expression.

“Sam?” He whispered.

“Yeah?”

Josh paused. “Is. . . is this real? I mean, is this really happening?”

Sam’s eyes widened. “What do you mean?”

“I, uh. . .” Josh groaned. “Fuck, sorry. Never mind.”

Sam knew Josh had some issues, but she’d never heard him say anything like this before. Did this happen a lot, or was it just under the admittedly unbelievable circumstances? A new fear prickled at her chest.

“No, no, it’s okay,” Sam soothed, shaking his hand in hers. “I mean, it’s not okay, but. . . this is real. You can trust yourself.”

Josh let out a shaky breath. “Okay, okay. . .”

“Oh, shit,” Chris said, whistling low as they entered a crumbling atrium filled with rubble, garbage, and stagnant, dirty puddles of who knows what. It looked like some sort of chapel. “What the hell is this?”

“I don’t know. Let’s just get out of here,” Ashley said, wrapping her arms around herself.

Sam dropped Josh’s hand and walked to meet Chris and Ashley ahead of them. “Don’t you guys think we should look around a little? I mean, maybe there's stuff in here that could help us somehow.”

“Like what?” Josh asked, running his hand through his hair.

Sam shrugged. “I don’t know. I mean, look at the place. Obviously, someone’s living here.” Looking around, the others knew she was right. There was furniture, clothes, and some cigars out that looked freshly smoked. “Maybe it’s the flamethrower guy. If we find him in here, maybe he can tell us what the hell is going on.”

“Are you kidding?” Ashley scoffed, shaking her head. “I don’t care what’s going on, can we please just get out of here?”

In the next room, a thud echoed.

“Did you hear that?” Josh muttered as he shifted in front of Sam, instinctively protective in spite of his fear.

“Oh no, no, no,” Ashley groaned, holding her head. “No way.”

Chris put one hand on her shoulder and faced the group, whispering. “Okay, look: if we’re gonna look around for stuff, we gotta do it quickly and quietly, right? I wanna know what’s going on just as much as you, Sam, but I’m not about to mess with more monsters tonight, okay?”

“It’s not like I’m eager to meet any more of those things,” Sam retorted, crossing her arms. “All I’m saying is that we’re at a serious disadvantage here without knowing anything about what we’re up against.”

“If that flamethrower guy helped save the twins and Mike,” Josh said, “then he’s gotta have some information about these things in here somewhere, right? I mean, who knows how long he’s been out here. He’s gotta know something.”

Sam nodded. “Agreed.”

“Alright,” Chris said, stretching his back. “Wanna split up?”

“Are you out of your mind?” Ashley hissed, smacking him lightly on the arm. “Are you trying to get us all killed?”

Chris blinked. “Well, I just thought we could cover more ground-”

“Have you never seen a horror movie, dude?” Josh asked, grinning.

“Alright, jeez!” Chris said, throwing his hands up in defeat. “We’ll stick together. Don’t make me feel bad.”

Sam stifled a laugh. “Sorry.”

Josh, looking much better already, wandered over to one of the small rooms blocked by criss crossing metal, yanking on the door while Sam investigated what she assumed were the flamethrower guy’s living quarters.

“Guys,” Josh hissed, waving them over. “I think there’s a gun in here.” He peered closer, aiming his flashlight. “Yeah, there definitely is. It’s a shotgun.”

“Well can you get it?” Ashley asked.

Josh shook his head. “Door’s locked.”

Standing next to him, Sam peered into the room too. “Look,” she shook his shoulder lightly and pointed towards the ceiling.

“There’s a hole. I bet I can get in there from over there,” she said, pointing this time at the stairs in front of a large pair of wooden doors.

Ashley looked unsure. “Is that really a good idea?”

“I can handle myself, Ashley,” Sam assured her, not unkindly.

“Be careful,” Ashley whispered anxiously.

Sam jogged over to the stairs. If the stairs in the lodge’s basement were bad, these could probably more accurately be called a hill. They were destroyed, completely crumbling in some spots, forcing Sam to jump over a few steps. Luckily, the way was clear, and just as she thought, Sam could slip into the small room pretty easily from the hole in the floor. Well, just as long as she could avoid the twisted, rusty rebar poking through the concrete. Easy-peasy, right?

“You okay?” Josh whispered as she dropped to the ground with a thud.

“Oof,” Sam gasped, wincing at a dull pain in her heel. After dusting herself off and running a brief visual scan, she nodded. “Yeah, yeah I’m good.”

She scooped up as many rounds as she could fit in her jeans pockets and grabbed the small shotgun. It was heavier than she expected it to be. The door unlocked easily and she handed the gun to Josh. He maybe wasn’t the wisest choice at the moment, but he was the only one of them she knew for a fact knew how to shoot. No way would Bob Washington let his son go without a few lessons, even if he hated them, which of course he did.

“Nice. Thanks,” he said as she handed over the rounds as well. “Hopefully we won’t need it.”

“Yeah, she agreed. “Let’s look around some more.”

* * *

 

“Hello? Hello?” Matt called desperately into the radio. Jessica could barely focus on him. The whole world seemed like smoke, and everything kept getting blurry. Matt said he wasn’t going to let them die, but if no one responded on the radio, she wasn’t sure how much longer she could last. It was hard to think about anything other than the pulsating pain radiating through her body, sickly hot in contrast to the biting cold that stung her skin.

Matt twisted the dial once more, and finally the radio flickered to life. “. . . ranger service for Blackwood county,” a tinny voice said.

“Yes!” Matt cheered, spluttering in disbelief. “Please, help us, we need help!” he said quickly, his excitement getting the better of him. Jessica felt her eyelids getting heavy, but she knew that if she closed her eyes, that was it. No way was she dying when they were so close to finally getting help, and not after Matt worked so hard to save her, and definitely not after getting all of them into this mess. Oh, god.

As he talked to the ranger, Jessica’s mind wandered. Her eyes ran over Matt’s moonlit figure. She didn’t even really know Matt. Well, they were friends of course, but they’d never really hung out just the two of them before. _And what a way to start_ , Jessica thought grimly.

She noticed him before. Like, noticed noticed. Who wouldn't? He was broad, strong, and so, so gorgeous. Sure, he could be dumb as a box of crayons sometimes, but it’s not like Jessica was winning any awards there either. They had so much in common, but Jessica was so obsessed with Mike that she never really considered Matt as a real option. He very definitely liked Ashley for a while there too, but unfortunately for him, the second Chris and Ash met, it was all over for both of them.

Thinking about her friends, about the way things used to be, hurt. She looked out the window at the woods bathed in the pale moonlight. How could she have done this to everyone? They were all in danger because she decided to be a heinous. bitch. If Hannah hadn’t run away after the prank, then maybe they never would have been attacked by those. . . things in the first place, but that wasn’t her fault, was it? It was because Jessica decided to be petty and jealous and mean that she and Matt were in this situation in the first place, and who know what happened to everyone else. Oh, god, what if they all got eaten? Ripped into ribbons by whatever grabbed her? Her stomach rolled just thinking about it.

“. . . we will send helicopters to your location as soon as the storm has subsided,” the radio chirped, bringing Jessica back to the present.

Matt looked at her with the most purely joyful smile on his face before turning back to the mic. “Fuck, thank you, but when?”

“Dawn, at the earliest,” the ranger said flatly, and Jessica felt her heart drop into her stomach. They had to wait until dawn? They had at least five hours to go.

Just then, the light outside flickered on.

“What was that?” Jessica said weakly, turning to look. She moved to get up, but Matt put a firm hand on her shoulder.

“Don’t worry,” he said, peering out the window. “It’s probably just a deer or something.”

A loud, metallic snap tore through the air and the tower wobbled dangerously.

“What was that?” Jessica repeated, panicked.

Another snap, and the metal legs of the tower groaned and twisted. Oh, fuck. Oh fuck, fuck, fuck; they were falling.

“Jess!” Matt called, reaching for her hand. “Jess, don’t move!”

Jessica screamed. They were tipping, and as hard as she tried, she couldn’t keep her balance. She tipped and tumbled out of the chair, falling and hitting the window hard. Inches from her face, a printer crashed through the window and she screamed. Metal squealed and groaned and suddenly they were in freefall.

Jessica squeezed her eyes shut and clung to the windowpane as the tower tore into the ground, burying them deeper and deeper in some massive pit. It seemed like they fell forever until the tower finally slowed, launching Matt and Jessica both through the window.

“Matt!” Jessica cried, catching herself at the last moment on the twisted railing hanging half detached from the structure. Matt fell into the darkness, and Jessica couldn’t see him. Even though the fire from the tower did illuminate the space a little, the bulk of the structure was blocking the light of the moon, and the darkness was so overwhelming it sucked the air from Jessica’s lungs.

Something tugged on the tower, pulling it farther. “Shit!” Jessica shrieked, searching wildly for a way down. There: a small rock ledge, maybe close enough to jump. Jessica sobbed and hung her head. Her body was so broken and tired. There was no fucking way she would make it, but what was the alternative? Falling to her death? Jessica sniffled and grit her teeth, sliding her hands as carefully as she could along the railing until she was closer to the outcropping.

With all of her strength, she heaved herself from the rail and onto the rough rock face, catching herself only just barely. She gasped and cried, scrambling as fast as she could to a sturdier position.

Finally able to catch her breath, she wiped the tears from her face and looked down into the cavern. Burning debris had fallen and illuminated not only an actual, man-made ledge, but also Matt dangling suspended from one of the support cables by his ankle.

“Matt!” Jessica wailed roughly, but he didn’t respond. His arms hung limply. Fuck! Was he dead? She could barely see, but she crawled as carefully as she could towards stable ground. He was maybe ten feet down, but she had to reach him. The tower had stopped for now, but it was only a matter of time before it started falling again.

Her ribs were fucking _howling_ , but she couldn’t let him fall. He worked so hard to save her. Now it was her turn.

* * *

 

“What do we do now?”

Emily and Beth were seated at the bar by the kitchen. It was driving Emily nuts just sitting around, twiddling their thumbs, not only because it was freezing and she was fucking terrified, but she couldn’t stop thinking about Mike and Jessica. Everyone else too, she amended. Was it wrong of her to be more worried about some of her friends more than others?

Beth sighed. “It’s killing me too, but we have to wait for everyone to get back.”

“What if they can’t come back?” Emily snapped, the stress finally getting to her. “What if they’re out there, trapped somehow? I can’t just sit here anymore, Beth. If we don’t do something I’m gonna lose it.”

Beth’s brows drew together and she sighed again. “Shit, maybe you’re right.” She stood up and rubbed her hands down her face. “Okay, let’s look in the basement. Sam, Josh, Chris, and Ashley all ran down there to distract the. . . thing from me. We can go see if they’re okay.”

“Okay,” Emily agreed, taking a deep breath and trying to relax. As they trotted down the stairs, she couldn’t stop herself from asking. “What happened to Mike?”

Beth’s shoulders tensed. “I don’t know,” she said in a small, hard voice. “He and Hannah ran outside while that thing was staring at me.”

Ridiculously, Emily felt a pang of jealousy. Couldn’t she knock it off for one second and contextualize? She shook her head. Besides, geeky Hannah was no threat. Ouch, Emily, she winced. Harsh, but not wrong.

They explored the basement in silence until they came upon the wine cellar. Or, more accurately, what used to be the wine cellar.

“Jesus christ,” Beth murmured. Smashed bottles and sticky, drying wine covered the floor, and one of the wooden wine racks was tipped and completely shattered.

“Did that thing do this?” Emily asked, toeing a broken board torn from the rack.

Beth gasped. “Oh my god no, Em. Look,” she rushed, pointing at the wooden door in front of them. “The doorknob is in the door. Dad always hid it on top of the wine rack so we wouldn’t go down here. Josh and the others must have come through here.” She jiggled the handle. “Shit. It’s locked.”

“Probably a good idea on their part,” Emily responded, tucking her hair behind her ear and crossing her arms. It was freezing down there, maybe even colder than outside. “Where does it go?”

“The old hotel the lodge is built on,” Beth responded, turning around and pushing past Emily, rushing further into the basement. “When we built the place my dad didn’t want to mess with it, so there’s still basically a whole building under here.”

They approached another door. Beth tried the knob and groaned.

“Is there a key?”

Beth sighed. “If it’s still here. Let me just. . .” she said, reaching around on the shelves next to the door. “Aha!” She said, sliding a key off the top shelf. It took a couple of tries, but eventually the door swung open.

“Have you ever been down here before?” Emily asked, eyeing the massive spiderwebs and dust coating the floors and walls.

Beth laughed. “Yeah,” she said, tone nostalgic. “Josh and I went down here once when we were kids. He lifted me onto his shoulders to get the key, and then we explored down here for hours. Hannah couldn’t find us and got upset, so she told mom and dad we ran away. Long story short, when we came back out, rangers were combing the forest for us and our mom was ballistic.” Emily couldn’t see Beth’s face, but her voice grew thick with tears. She laughed again. “God, dad was so pissed at us.”

“You guys must have had a lot of fun up here when you were younger,” Emily said softly, brushing her arm against Beth’s. It hurt to see Beth so torn up. If they were gonna get through this, they had to do it together. Emily was never the greatest at offering comfort, but she tried her best. “Sorry everything got so fucked up.”

“No,” Beth said, shaking her head and catching a tear. “It’s okay. Everything is gonna be fine.”

After several seconds of impassioned internal debate over whether she should say anything or not, Emily finally caved. “Beth, are you mad at me? I mean, it’s Jessica’s fault, but I mean, I was there. It was just supposed to be funny.”

Beth rolled her eyes and stopped. “Are you serious right now? You’re making excuses for yourself while all of our friends might be dead? Nice, Emily.”

Okay, so maybe that internal debate didn’t last long enough. “No, that’s not what I meant. I just, I wanted to make sure. . .”

“Wanted to make sure, what? That I don’t blame you for monsters running around in the woods? You are so self-centered.” Emily sighed through her nose and looked away, ashamed. “Am I pissed at all of you for what you did to Hannah? Yeah, you bet your ass I am, but we have more important things to deal with right now.”

Beth sighed and loosened her posture, closing her eyes. “Look, what happened with the prank is over now, okay? Just. . . don’t worry about it. I’m not really mad. I know you didn’t hurt her on purpose.”

Emily nodded and slowly stepped forward. Beth followed her cue, and the two of them delved deeper into the old hotel. Beth was so _good_. Too good sometimes, if she was being honest. Sure, Emily could have fought back and argued, but to be honest, she didn’t have it in her right now. It was always a tough pill to swallow when people called her on her bullshit, especially since she was so hyper-aware of her own shortcomings and did plenty of thinking about them on her own time, but Beth didn’t need a fight right now. She needed a friend.

Slowly, the air got thicker and thicker, and the walls around them looked more and more decrepit.

“Ugh, how old is this place?” Emily coughed, covering her mouth.

Beth shrugged. “The hotel and sanatorium were built in the 20’s.”

Emily shuddered. “Creepy.”

“Definitely,” Beth agreed, and they soldiered on in the dark, following the skinny beam of light from the flashlight.

A thought struck Emily suddenly. “Wait, we’re going too fast.”

Beth slowed. “What?”

“Well, they’re like hiding down here, right? Shouldn’t we be, I don’t know, looking for them or something?”

Beth thought for a moment and shook her head. “Nah. If I know those guys, I know they wouldn’t want to stick around in

here too long.”

“Who would?” Emily agreed quietly, wrinkling her nose.

“Our best bet is that they went through the hotel, through the sanatorium, and hopefully out on the other side,” Beth said slowly, like she was working out their plan in her head as she said it. “I have no clue what’s over there, but at least they wouldn't be trapped inside.”

“Have you been to the sanatorium before?” Emily asked, somewhat fearfully.

Beth scoffed. “Are you kidding? My dad would have killed me. Exploring the hotel was bad enough. I have no idea what’s in there, but I bet you anything Josh led them that way.”

“Great,” Emily said sarcastically. “We’re fucked.”

“The attitude is really not helping right now, Emily,” Beth said, thundering down a rotten staircase. Emily followed tentatively.

Suddenly, their surroundings were industrial rather than vintage, and the floor was littered with building debris. The girls looked at each other quickly, a silent whoa passing between them before they continued on. What the hell were these tunnels built for, anyway? Who the fuck builds a hotel in a basement?

“Hey, look,” Beth said quietly, tapping Emily’s arm. “See those doors? I think that’s it.”

“Nice,” Emily said, and the two set off in a jog to get to the end of the hall. When they reached the doors, Emily gave one a sharp tug with no luck. “Crap. It’s locked.”

“Oh my god, Em, look!” Beth gasped, clutching Emily’s jacket tightly. Emily tried not to think about the fact that her coat was $800 and Beth was wrinkling the sleeve.

She was pointing at a rough, hastily scratched arrow on the floor. Beth’s shoulders shook.

“They’re alive! They’re alive and they came through here,” she cried, face bright with relief. “I was right!”

“Yeah, but how do we get to them? They locked the door behind them again,” Emily said, giving the door another tug for good measure. Scanning the room, her eyes stopped on a sewer cover. “Oh, hang on. Do you think that leads to the sanatorium?”

Beth grabbed a piece of rebar from the dirty floor and pried the lid open quickly. “Guess we’re gonna find out.”

 _I guess so_ , Emily thought with a sinking dread.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hannah and Mike have a talk, Sam, Josh, Ashley, and Chris explore the sanatorium.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heyo, guys! I'm going to try and start updating this more often. As always, I really appreciate your feedback, so leave a comment and tell me what you think. Thanks for reading!

Huge black paws were pressed firmly against Hannah’s chest, and the breath rolling out of the wolf’s moist nose was fogging up her glasses. No tang of blood. No sharp teeth ripping at flesh. Just eyes.

“Hannah!” Mike shouted. He tensed, primed to kick the wolf on top of her.

“Mike, don’t!” she hissed, eyes wide. “Don’t.”

The wolf sniffed at her face tentatively and Hannah couldn’t close her eyes if she had to. The wolf was heavy and her claws were digging into Hannah’s skin through her clothes, but she only sniffed at Hannah’s face, a curious expression on her face, like a human. Hannah could feel her own pulse rushing through her entire body, and fear was rolling off of Mike in waves. He tensed again as the wolf brought her wet nose to Hannah’s cheek, but she only delivered a gentle lick before climbing off of Hannah and sitting back in front of the door again.

Mike was lifting her to her feet in an instant, his warm hands running up and down her arms to check for damage.

“You okay?”

Hannah nodded breathlessly. Whatever just happened, it was otherworldly. No more otherworldly than anything else that was going on, of course, but magical nonetheless.

Mike sighed in relief and clutched her tightly in his arms, cheek resting on the top of her head. “Jesus,” he breathed, running his hand over her hair. “Jesus holy shit fuck shit. That was fucking crazy. Hannah, you’re a lunatic.”

A beat passed and Hannah felt Mike stiffen, sensing the exact moment he remembered that Hannah wasn’t too pleased with him right now. Hannah took a deep, calming breath, but a shaky laugh escaped when she exhaled.

“Maybe,” she said, approaching the wolf slowly to stroke her thick fur. “But I was right, wasn’t I?”

A sharp whistle echoed through the woods, and the wolf’s ears perked up. Calmly, she took one last long look at Mike and Hannah before trotting out the door and back into the snow.

Mike and Hannah stood in silence for a beat before Mike turned to her.

“We gotta follow that thing, right?”

Hannah nodded quickly, eyes wide. “I know what I said before. That wolf’s gotta belong to somebody.”

The animal stopped several yards away, looking at them like it was waiting. “Do you think it could be the flamethrower guy? The one who saved us outside the lodge?”

“Who else would it be?” Hannah said breathlessly, still caught in disbelief.

“He’s gotta know about these things,” Mike said, nervously clearing his throat to punctuate his thoughts. “Somehow I think finding him might help our chances of survival a little.”

“A little,” Hannah smiled at him, giddy at the prospect of getting off Mount Washington alive. A bold fire sparked in her chest, and Hannah grabbed Mike’s hand and dragged him into the cold of the night. She didn’t do it to impress him. Well, not entirely. No, seriously.

Her giddiness evaporated quickly at the thought, and she almost groaned aloud at herself. Here they were, stranded in the middle of the forest in a snowstorm, running from freaky Native American cannibal monsters, and following a domesticated wolf to who knows where, and Hannah was seriously thinking about impressing Mike right now? Like four or five hours ago he completely betrayed her trust and hurt her worse than she’d ever been hurt before, an active participant in the worst night of her life. Was she seriously still hanging on to this stupid crush? Still following the advice of teen girl magazines, telling her to be bold to win over some guy she was apparently incompatible with? She got a _tattoo_ for him, for fuck’s sake.

Yes, she was angry, but more than that, she was hurt. Hurt beyond words. The depth of her friends’ betrayal was pounding in her ears. She wanted Josh, so she could just be hugged and held and comforted, but that wasn’t an option at the moment. She dropped Mike’s hand, probably long after she should have. Her eyes were trained on the dark figure of the wolf ahead.

As if reading her thoughts, Mike cleared his throat. “Hey, Han?”

“Can we not, right now?” Hannah interrupted, internally cringing at how pathetic she sounded.

“Uh, well,” Mike started, rubbing the back of his head. “I kinda feel like I need to? Because, uh. . . shit, I kinda can’t handle you not talking to me right now.”

Hannah couldn’t stop a tear from slipping down her cheek. She swiped it away quickly, not wanting to give Mike the satisfaction of seeing her cry. Plus, freezing her eyelashes together would suck.

Mike hustled a little so they were walking side by side. “I am so, _so_ sorry, Hannah,” he said, the pain obvious in his voice. She couldn’t look at him. “You’re my friend and I hurt you and I’m a real piece of shit for it, alright?”

God, that hurt. He was saying everything she wanted to hear, but she couldn't let herself fold so easily. The lesson hadn’t properly sunk in yet. Probably.

“I’m not going to blame Jessica to save my ass,” he continued, voice hard. “We all did this to you, and I. . . shit, Han, I don’t know what I was thinking.”

Hannah whirled on him, stopping them both in their tracks while tears pooled in her eyes. Well, shit. As if sensing the conflict, the wolf stopped and turned to watch with patient eyes.

“Do you hate me, Michael?” Hannah croaked, cheeks flushing red from the cold and the pain. “Do I embarrass you, or- or. . .” A sharp sob cut her off. “I just don’t understand,” she finished weakly, staring at her shoes.

Mike's expression could have broken her heart. “No, Hannah, no. I could never hate you. If I hate anyone, I hate myself,” he said, voice wavering. “I’m such a fuckface. A total idiot. You deserve better from me.”

“You were my best friend,” Hannah whispered brokenly, still unable to meet his eyes.

Mike stood there for a second, speechless. The cold wind and snow whipped around them, but Hannah was so numb she could barely feel it.

“I’m so sorry,” he finally murmured, stepping closer. “I wouldn’t ever ask for your forgiveness right now. I don’t deserve it. But I want you to know how much I care about you and how much I regret everything that happened tonight.”

Hannah nodded, unsure of how to react. It was perfect, all of it perfect, but how could she trust him again after that? How could she ever trust any of them again?

Another whistle rang through the trees, and the wolf cocked her head, directing them once more to follow her. It was a stark reminder of the situation that they were in, and Hannah remembered that now they had no choice but to trust each other.

Mike took her hand. “We’re gonna get out of this, Hannah. I promise.”

His words rang in her ears. She dropped his hand and kept walking.

* * *

  
“Where do we even start?” Ashley muttered, looking around the atrium with a spin. “This place is huge.”

Chris threw his hands in the air. “See, this? This is why we should split up.”

“Okay, how about this,” Sam said, raising her arms in surrender. “How about we split up, but all of us stay in this room? We could keep doing that through the entire building, if we wanted to.”

Josh nodded slowly. “Yeah. . . yeah, that’s smart. That way, we’re all still together, but making better time so we can get the hell out of here as soon as possible.”

Ashley said nothing, still scanning the room around them. It was hard to see, illuminated dimly by their flashlights and the light of the moon outside, shining through the cracks in the ceiling. This was so, so awful. All she wanted to do was curl up into a little ball and wait to wake up from this nightmare, but there was nowhere to lay down and also everyone would think she’s ridiculous. They wouldn’t be wrong.

A draft was wafting through one of the auxiliary rooms, and where the door would be was only twisted, broken chain links, like it the door had been ripped right off. Great. What a great place to start looking.

She crept into the room carefully, taking one last look at her friends in the room behind her before she ventured on. Snow drifts were piled in the corners of the rooms, connected by broken walls and littered with broken furniture and other debris. The papers still in filing cabinets were destroyed by age and water damage, so she abandoned her search there.

A massive hole in the exterior brick wall led to what looked like a small courtyard. Much more promising than the paper.

It was absolutely frigid outside, and Ashley wrapped her arms around herself. Snow was blowing into her face and getting caught in her eyelashes. She helped a bit and wiped them away, and when she opened her eyes again, she gasped.

Wooden crosses covered the ground she was standing on, each carved with names and the same date: February 24th, 1952. Ashley crouched to run her fingers across the shallow etching on one of the crosses. A makeshift graveyard for a lot of dead people.

“What happened here?” she muttered, scanning the other crosses.

“Guys, come look at this!” she heard Chris call from inside, and hurried out of the cold and creepiness gratefully.

The four of them converged in the middle of the room.

“What is it?” Sam asked, peering at the paper Chris held in his hand.

Chris shook his head. “I don’t know. Some letter to the sanatorium staff about preparing beds for some miners they were rescuing.”

Ashley took the paper from his hands and read it more thoroughly.

“Mines?” Sam asked, looking at Josh. “There were mines here?”

“There _are_ mines,” he corrected, eyes darting around the room. “But they’re a total death trap. A lot of the entrances are unmarked, too, so it would be really easy to fall into one of the mine shafts or whatever.”

“Guess they were a death trap back then, too,” Chris said grimly, grimacing at the stained letter.

Ashley flipped it over, scanning the handwritten addition. “Guys, look! It says ‘You’ll need a nose peg. Those guys smell awful.’”

“What does it mean?” Josh asked, peering over Ashley’s shoulder to see for himself.

“The hell if I know,” Chris shrugged. He spun around, eyeing the massive wooden doors behind them. “But I have a feeling that if we keep poking around in here, we’re gonna find out.”

“Anyone find anything else?” Sam asked, looking at Ashley and Josh.

“There’s a bunch of bones and stuff over in that trunk,” Josh replied nervously. He looked more than a little jumpy, and Ashley was not thrilled about the shotgun in his hands. “They look chewed on, like dog toys or something.”

“Weird,” Chris said with a shiver.

Sam turned to Ashley. “How about you, Ash?”

Ashley took a deep breath. “There was a bunch of filing cabinets in there, but all the paper was totally ruined. But outside, there’s this. . . there’s this graveyard.”

“What?” Sam asked, brows coming together quickly in shock. “A graveyard?”

“Yeah,” Ashley continued, rubbing her arms for warmth and comfort. “There’s a bunch of wooden crosses out there. They’re all sloppy and breaking, like they were made in a hurry, and all of them say the same date on them: February 24th, 1952.”

“Holy shit,” Josh whispered, holding his head in his hands. “What do you think happened?”

“Okay, we need to keep going,” Sam said, restless. “Something is going on here, and I think whatever it is, it’s connected to those monsters somehow.”

Chris looked skeptical. “What makes you say that?”

Sam shook her head. “Just a feeling. I don’t know. But seriously, come on. Let’s see what else we can find in this place.”

It took both Chris and Josh shoving on the wooden doors for them to swing open, and when they did, a crumbling, echoing foyer was revealed.

“Whoa,” Chris whistled, spinning and looking around the room. “Speaking of death traps. . .”

When his back was turned, he hit his heel on a broken slab of concrete hard. With an awkward yelp, he almost ate it before Ashley caught him at the last second, straining hard not to fall over. Josh rushed over to help pull Chris to his feet.

“Watch where you’re going, you dip!” Ashley chided, smacking his arm lightly.

“Sorr-y, jeez,” Chris said, wiggling his foot. “We’re supposed to be looking around.”

“Yeah, carefully,” Sam replied, eyes looking mischievous. She peered down one of the hallways. “Let’s go this way. We might as well start somewhere.”

The other three of them filed in behind her, and Ashley fell in beside Chris.

“I hate this, Chris,” she whispered, eyes darting over all the ruins. “I feel like we’re walking through a tomb.”

“It’ll be okay, Ash,” he soothed, tense and awkward next to her. “We just gotta find our way out of here and we’ll be good.”

They filed into the other rooms, investigating and finding relics of the past, abandoned and untouched for sixty years. Slowly, piece by piece, that past was starting to come together. There was the rescue of the miners, covered up and hidden by the sanatorium for some disturbing reason. Tragic, desperate graffiti marked the walls of the patients’ rooms, though they more closely resembled prison cells to Ashley. Hastily scribbled doctors’ and nurses’ notes revealed a mysterious illness, and photographs revealed the slow deterioration of the miners, devolving into manic, uncontrollable patients that looked almost corpselike. Almost like the monsters that fought in the Washingtons’ living room.

“You were right,” Josh muttered, looking up from several photographs of the sick miners. “I don’t know what this is, but you were right, Sam. Those things are the rescued miners.”

“No, no way,” Chris said, waving his hands and backing away. “They’re, like, crawling all over the walls and shit, and, and they’d be like at least eighty years old by now. There’s no way.”

Ashley crossed her arms. “Are you serious? _Look_ at these pictures, Chris! Are these not what we saw in the lodge?”

“Look, I don’t know what we saw,” Chris said defensively. “But there’s no way it’s these miners from sixty years ago. Whatever chased us back there, it wasn’t human.”

A horrible scream echoed down the crumbling halls, and the four of them froze.

“What was that?” Ashley breathed, eyes bulging in fear.

Josh slowly held a finger to his lips, trembling. They stood there for maybe a minute, all straining to hear anything else and exchanging desperate looks with each other. A faint scrabbling noise sounded from down the hallway, but the echoing made it impossible to judge how far away the source of the sound was.

“We gotta get out of here,” Sam whispered, looking at the door. “I’m gonna go check.”

“Sam!” Josh hissed urgently, grabbing her wrist. “Don’t.”

“It’s fine,” she soothed, easing him to release her.

Ashley’s heart was in her throat as Sam crept towards the door, planted her back firmly against the wall, then slowly leaned out to peer down the hallway. The four of them watched as she froze, leaning slowly back into the room and rushing back to report.

“It’s in the hallway,” she breathed. “It’s blocking the way forward.”

They all mourned for their escape for a moment before Josh perked up. “I have an idea.”

“Yeah, me too: wait for it to go away on its own,” Chris retorted, shaking his head. “If we try to do anything we’re going to get ourselves killed.”

“Would you rather we stand around here until it crawls in here and kills us?” Josh whispered back, shoulders squared. “Because I actually want to make it out of this place in one piece.”

“What’s your big plan, then?” Chris snapped. They were only fighting because they were scared, but Ashley hated it all the same. She hated conflict.

Josh looked around the room before creeping over and grabbing an empty, discarded filing cabinet drawer, handing the shotgun off to Sam. “I’m going to chuck this down the other side of the hallway, and then we’re all going to sneak down the hall and out of sight before that thing notices.”

“Oh wow, what a great idea if you want to get us all killed,” Chris said, rolling his eyes.

“Yeah, well I don’t see you coming up with any plans, bozo,” Josh said back, smacking Chris upside the head.

Sam intervened. “Knock it off,” she hissed, staring at them both. “Josh is right; we don’t really have any other options, and as much as I hate this plan, there’s no way I’m just gonna stand around in this room and wait. Let’s do this.”

Ashley didn’t miss the look that passed between Josh and Sam, and she felt a flash of jealousy. Something about their skinny love seemed so much more. . . legitimate than her own. What a dumb thing to think about right now.

Before they moved, Josh said, “When I throw this thing, you all have to run as soon as the monster chases the drawer, and whatever you do, don’t look back.”

Josh crept to one side of the door, and the three of them crouched by the other. Sam held up her hand, counting down from five. When she hit one, Josh stepped into the doorframe and hurled the drawer with all his might down the hallway, ducking back into the room immediately and flattening himself against the wall. The metal drawer bounced and clattered perfectly, and the four of them held their breath.

The monster screeched and skittered down the hallway, chasing the noise and motion. Quickly, the four of them darted silently down the hall. Betraying herself, Ashley looked behind them, and was greeted with the sight of the creature staring right at them, still hovering over the drawer yards away.

“Guys!” she cried, pushing on the backs of Chris and Sam.

They looked behind them too, saw what she saw, and stood upright.

“Run!” Josh shouted.

He didn’t have to tell her twice.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Beth and Emily search for their friends

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You read that summary correctly folks, this chapter is ALL about Beth and Emily! I've been having a lot of fun exploring their relationship and the ~hidden depths~ of Emily's character, and I feel like Beth would bring that out in her. I hate how superficial their friendships felt in the game, but I guess that's why fic exists in the first place, right?  
> Anyways, enjoy!

“Beth, this is crazy,” Emily whispered, peering around in the darkness with her flashlight.

Beth scaled down the frozen ladder quickly, pulling her palms away before they could stick. The air was damp and pungent down there, and the remnants of rotting moss clung to the jagged walls. Despite the suffocating smell, Beth wanted to run her fingers down the slick stone that reflected the warm light of the flashlight.

“What is this tunnel anyway?” Emily continued, treading carefully across the uneven surface below. “The grate up there made me think it would be a sewer or something, but this is. . .”

“This looks like a mining tunnel. Right?” It didn't take long before Beth kicked something metal and tripped, landing hard on her knee and slicing a thick gash across the length of her kneecap. “Oh, fuck!” she cried, clutching the wound with shaky hands. “What the fuck was that?”

Emily stooped with the light and shined it by Beth’s boots, illuminating rusting metal and rotting wood. “A pickaxe,” she said, twisting her mouth. “Guess you were right about the mines.”

“Shit,” Beth hissed, examining the shiny blood quickly saturating her thin running leggings. 

“Let me help,” Emily said, setting down the flashlight so the beam illuminated Beth’s knee. She examined the wound, probing the skin around the tear in Beth's pant leg. Beth winced. “Sorry,” she huffed, sitting back onto her heels and wiping her own forehead with her back of her hand, avoiding smearing Beth’s blood onto her face.

Beth shook her head. “Thank you,” she whispered weakly, feeling a little dizzy. There was no time for dizzy shit. “Will you help me up?”

Emily grabbed the flashlight in one hand and wrapped her other arm underneath Beth’s armpit, hauling her to her feet with a grunt. “Ohh, shit,” Emily breathed. “Okay, okay, I’ve got you.”

Beth let out a shaky breath, feeling the beads of clammy sweat forming on her upper lip. “Let’s go.”

They stumbled slowly forward. The numb throbbing of her knee was starting to fade, and Beth felt less and less like she actually needed Emily’s support. Still, she was certain she’d be much slower on her own, and they needed to hurry to catch up to the others.

“Help!”

A voice bounced through the cavernous tunnels, seeming to come from every direction. Beth and Emily’s eyes snapped together, wide with shock and fear.

“What was that?” Emily whispered.

“Help!” the voice cried again, and a flicker of recognition shone in Beth’s eyes.

“Oh my god,” she whispered, breaking free from Emily’s grasp and wandering down a random curve in the tunnel. “Oh my god, that was Chris.”

Emily shuffled quickly behind her, grabbing her hand. “Wait for me!” She shone the light ahead of them. Beth held her hand tighter; the last thing she needed was to trip again, and her anxiety was through the roof.

They clung to each other, creeping slowly in the semi darkness, listening hard for another cry. Beth was this fucking close to screaming herself, but she kept her scream in her throat with her heart and hoped she wouldn’t choke.

“Help!” Chris’ voice called again, clearly coming from a tunnel to the left. This time, Beth stopped in her tracks.

“What is it?” Emily hissed, close to Beth’s ear.

Beth felt her blood pounding in her chest and through to her fingers. Her lip trembled. “That’s not Chris.”

Emily blinked. “ _What_?”

“Listen again,” Beth whispered, holding up her free hand to her ear, straining to hear.

A minute passed, Then, again, they heard: “Help!”

“It’s the same thing over and over,” Beth said, eyes huge with shock and fear. “He’s saying it the exact same way over and over, did you hear it?”

“Help!” the voice called. Emily clapped her hand over her mouth.

“What the fuck is that?”

Beth shook her head in disbelief. “Whatever it is, it’s not Chris.” Panic rattled around in her head, and it was all she could do to keep breathing.

Emily groaned and held her head in her hands, stomping her feet and shaking her hair out of her face. “This is so fucked up. Do we just leave? What’s if it’s really him?”

She couldn’t stand there another fucking second listening to this shit. Beth dragged them down the path to the right, limping dramatically. “It’s not,” she said firmly, tugging against Emily’s resistance.

“But-”

“It’s not!” Beth nearly shouted, grabbing Emily’s arms and struggling to keep quiet. “It’s not, okay?” She repeated, quieter this time. “I’ve known him since I was six years old. I know him, Emily, and that’s not him.”

Emily nodded, looking apologetic, and shot one last glance down the cavern behind them before hooking her arm around Beth and hauling them both forward. His voice followed them, but the two silently agreed to pretend not to hear.

The contact felt too good. Beth felt weak and dizzy and tired, and all she wanted was to lay her head on Emily's shoulder and fall asleep. Under the circumstances, it seemed a little weird, but she was glad they were spending time together. In the months that Emily had been dating Mike, she kind of drifted away from Jessica and Beth. The three of them used to have slumber parties all the time, giggling in pillow forts and crying together at sad romantic movies. Beth would say something crass and the other two would explode into gasps and laughter. They’d all sneak into the kitchen at four in the morning to bake cinnamon rolls and eat them all crammed into Beth’s queen sized bed, giggling about dropping crumbs everywhere. They used to have fun.

Beth was there for Emily when her parents were going through the divorce. The two of them supported Jessica when her house got burglarized last year, and Emily practically saved Beth’s life when Josh tried to kill himself for the first time. They laughed together and they cried together. They supported each other, and that had been missing for the past few months. Beth didn’t want to think about how that might have contributed to the host of variables that aligned to make their vicious prank happen.

Point was, here was Emily, literally physically supporting Beth when she needed her, and it felt good.

“I missed you, Emily,” Beth said, surprising herself. Did she say that out loud on purpose?

Emily seemed a little surprised too. “What?”

Beth waffled. “Uh, just. . . thank you.”

Emily sighed and hefted Beth a little higher on her shoulder. “No, I know what you mean. I kinda ditched you guys once Mike and I got together.” For a second, she couldn’t form words, and Beth was prepared to tell her she didn’t need an explanation when Emily interrupted her by starting one. “I don’t know what I was thinking. I guess I was just excited that a guy liked me, you know? Like, really liked me. Not because I was rich, or pretty, or smart enough to do his chemistry homework for him.”

“As if you ever would,” Beth added with a soft laugh.

Emily smiled briefly. “Yeah, right?” She paused, sighing. “Mike was just so  _crazy_ about me in those early days.”

Beth nodded. “You really don’t have to explain, Em. It’s okay. Jess and I understood.”

“It was still shitty of me, and I’m sorry,” Emily asserted somewhat begrudgingly, shifting Beth’s position on her arm again. Apologizing was _not_  her forte. “When we get out of this, I’m gonna be better to you guys. I promise.”

Beth let a tear slip down one cheek and rested her head on Em’s shoulder again. What a fucking night. Who knew that, on their journey through some creepy mine shaft on the run from zombie monsters, they’d make up and discover the true meaning of friendship? Wow.

Mercifully, Emily interrupted Beth’s bizarre thoughts. “I can’t stop thinking about Chris’ voice back there.”

Oh, right. That. “Oh,” Beth said, voice small. “Yeah.”

Sensing her discomfort, Emily backpedaled. “Oh, sorry. We don’t have to talk about it.”

“Yeah, let’s-” Beth started to agree, but stopped herself as the small cave opened up into a much larger area, the same slick, rough rock walls rising twenty or thirty feet into the air. Beth could see tiny flakes twirling in from the storm outside, which meant there was an outlet through there somewhere. Freedom.

The first problem with that is that a steep rock face divided them from the path forward, at least twelve feet tall and just as wet and uneven as the rest of the caverns. The second problem was that, even if Beth could possibly climb that normally, her fucking knee was bleeding all over the place. The situation looked pretty fucking grim.

Beth slipped out from Emily’s grasp and hobbled over to a boulder jutting from the wall in front of them, settling down slowly and not caring about the freezing water that soaked the ass of her leggings. Okay, that part was a lie, but the need to get off her knee was stronger than her need for a dry ass. For now.

“Shit,” Emily muttered, tapping her chin and scanning her quick eyes up and down the rock face, plotting and replotting potential climbing routes. She was doing an awful lot of head shaking.

Beth squeezed her eyes shut and clutched at her swollen leg, taking a deep breath. “You know, Emily, maybe you should just go on without-”

“Don’t you dare finish that sentence, Bethany Washington,” Emily threatened, pointing a harsh manicured nail in her direction, somehow still perfect looking despite the blood caked underneath. “That is not an option.”

“Yeah, and at this point, neither is that wall,” Beth said, gesturing to her wounded knee. “I’m useless with this thing on even ground. There’s no way I can climb right now.”

Emily rubbed her face. “Fuck. Now would be a great time to have Sam with us, wouldn't it?”

Beth inhaled sharply, her heart rate elevating with the reignited worry she felt for her friends. Where were they? She hoped that they got away, that they made it through the sanatorium and out on the other side, that they’d made it to. . .

Shit. Oh, _shit_. Beth patted her jacket frantically, searching like a maniac for what she was sure was supposed to be there.

“Beth, what?” Emily said, twisting her brows in confusion.

“The keys, the fucking keys to the cable car station!” she hissed, shoving her hands in and out of different pockets over and over, unable to believe that she’d actually forgotten them. After a third sweep, she ripped her hands free and shook them wildly in frustration. “Fuck!”

Emily groaned. “Oh, god.”

“I totally forgot to grab them when we were in the lodge,” she said thickly, tears forming fast in her eyes. “I’m so fucking sorry Emily.”

“Wait, you didn’t drop them or something?”

Beth shook her head. “No, I never grabbed them off the hook in the kitchen. I was going to and then I forgot.”

Emily shook her head back with more vigor. “No, no way, because the keys weren’t on the hook.”

“What?” Beth asked harshly, shoving herself off of the boulder and hobbling over to where Emily stood. “What do you mean the keys weren’t on the hook?”

Emily looked defensive and confused. “I mean they weren’t on the hook! I just assumed you already grabbed them!”

Beth’s head spun and she rubbed her eyes. “Oh, my god. Okay. So that means Josh probably has them,” she said into her hands, more to herself than to Emily. “That makes sense. They’d want to get through the sanatorium and back to the station. He probably has those keys.”

“Well, fuck,” Emily said, kicking at a pebble on the rough ground. “How do we find them?”

Beth tipped her head up and closed her eyes, trying furiously to calm the fuck down. The panic was rising in her throat like bile and she could feel desperate tears itching to roll out of her eyes. “We gotta go back through the lodge. It’s the only way.”

Emily crossed her arms. “Do you think any of those monsters would be there?”

Beth shook her head. “I doubt it. The one that’s in there is dead. Why would another one come snooping around?” She rolled her neck and stared absently at her knee. “Besides, no one is in there anymore. It’s dead silent and pitch black. I hate to say it, but we’d probably be safer in there than anywhere else.”

“Ugh, fuck, that kinda makes sense,” Emily groaned, spinning on her heel restlessly. “Okay, you’re right. Let’s head back.”

Beth lifted her arm and let Emily slide in next to her, easing her just the slightest bit off her leg and guiding them both forward. Neither of them were going to say it, but if she didn’t get her leg looked at soon, things were going to get really, really bad. She could lose too much blood, she could potentially lose the leg, she could get an infection, etc. These were new additions to a whole host of delightful, terrible things that would happen to all of them if they didn’t get the hell out of there.

A thought struck her. “Hey, Em, do you have your phone?”

Emily’s brows drew together. “Uh, yeah, why?”

“What time is it?”

It took some careful maneuvering, but Emily slid her phone from her pocket without dropping Beth. “It’s 4:02 right now.”

Beth sighed with relief. “Okay, that’s good. We can work with that. That’s only, what, three hours until dawn?”

Emily nodded silently as they resumed their shuffle back to the lodge.

Three hours. Three hours until the sun rose, until the temperature rose, until they could all fucking see again and maybe find each other. Beth glanced down at the dark stain on her jeans and the gash underneath it. It was hard to tell just by the light of the flashlight how bad it was, but judging by all the blood, it wasn’t good.

“Hey Em,” Beth said, voice the tiniest bit strained. “When we stop at the lodge, do you think maybe we could wrap my knee up with something somehow? I know it’s only three hours, but-”

“No, you're right, you should cover that,” Emily said, picking up the pace a bit at the mention. Beth felt a rush of dizziness, and Emily propped her up higher. “It’s okay, Beth. It’s gonna be fine.”

Emily was right. Beth swallowed hard, glancing again at her knee. She had to be right.

Beth sighed. "Let's just-"

A voice rang out in the darkness, this time from the cliff. "Beth? Is that you?"

Beth and Emily looked at each other. _Fuck_.

 


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chris, Ashley, Sam, and Josh struggle for surivival in the sanatorium.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) I love the wolves. I LOVE THEM.  
> 2) I'm trying to condense where I can, but please let me know if things are too slow or unnecessary or boring.  
> Please give me some feedback for this chapter! Love you guys, thanks for reading!

They tore through the crumbling halls, and Chris could hardly breathe in the cold. Ashley’s hand was grasped tightly in his, the two of them behind Josh and in front of Sam while they ran from the creature hot on their tails.

  
“Sam!” Chris shouted desperately, not looking back. “Would you happen to know how to use that thing?” he asked, referring to the shotgun she clutched tightly in her hand.

  
“Uh,” she responded hesitantly. “Not really!”

  
Josh fell behind Chris and Ashley as they ducked around a corner and into a room, slamming the door behind them. Sam helped him push a heavy cabinet in front of the door and they all stood back, catching their breath. The monster slammed into the door, screeching and scratching at the metal, but could not break through. In a final lamentation, it skittered away, probably looking for another way in. For now, the group relaxed.

  
Josh held out his hand to Sam. “Here, give it to me.”

  
“You know how to shoot?” Ashley questioned, crossing her arms.

  
“Yeah, my dad is a total freak about it,” Josh responded quietly, looking the gun over again. “Thinks he’s Grizzly Adams or something.”

  
Sam wiped her palms on her jeans vigorously as she sat on an ancient metal desk, obviously grateful the shotgun was out of her hands. She was shaking, just barely. It was only enough that Chris could see it if he really looked at her. He never dared to have a crush on her when they were younger, half afraid of her and half afraid of Josh, but Chris always really looked up to Sam. She was strong without sacrificing her gentleness, competent without being commanding, and sharp as hell without acting smug. The whole “nonviolence” thing was admirable in her where it was condescending in others, and Chris felt a pang of guilt that he’d asked her to shoot. He felt compelled to apologize, but Josh beat him to it.

  
“Sammy, I’m sorry I made you hold the gun. I just trust you-”

  
“It’s fine,” she interrupted breezily, brushing him off. “I know.” Josh slid next to her and sat down on the desk.

  
Chris looked away, embarrassed, and saw Ashley pacing around with her hands over her face, eyes darting all over the room for an exit. She was primed for a full freak-out.

  
He rushed over. “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” he said gently, resting his hands on her shoulders. “Ash, you okay?”

  
She shook her head. “We shouldn’t be in here, Chris. We shouldn’t be just _standing around_ , we need to get _out_  of here.”

  
“Okay, okay,” he soothed, glancing over his shoulder at the other two. “Let’s go get Sam and Josh and find a way out, alright?”

  
Ashley nodded weakly. She looked tired.

  
When Chris approached, Josh stood up. “You thinking what I’m thinking?”

  
“Yeah,” Chris nodded, suppressing a shiver when his eyes ran over the barricaded door. “We should get moving.”

  
Sam stood up too. “Do you think we should try the door again?”

  
The four of them lapsed into silence, hardly breathing so they might hear noise in the hallway. All Chris could hear was blood rushing in his ears, but Sam was clearly actually listening, because she placed two firm hands on the cabinet and started to push. Josh rushed to help her, but when the doorway was cleared, no one moved.

  
“Somebody should check the hallway,” Ashley hissed, clearly not ready to volunteer herself.

  
“Fine,” Sam whispered in response, irritated but also obviously frightened.

  
Chris poked her lightly on the shoulder. “I got your back, bro.”

  
The door creaked open and Sam peered through the crack. “Nothing. Let’s go.”

  
The four of them snuck out into the hall, eyes still nervously scanning every feature of the crumbling hallways. Up ahead, in the opposite direction from where they came, Chris spotted what looked like a framed map of the facility.

  
“Yo guys,” he said, already walking. “I think that’s a map.”

  
“Oh, thank god,” Ashley groaned, jogging to catch up.

  
The four of them reached the map and studied it in silence before Josh pointed at the glass. “Okay, so we passed through the chapel and the foyer on our way in, right?”

  
Sam nodded. “Yeah, but the front doors were blocked.”

  
“Right,” Josh continued, tracing their path with his finger. “Then we came through this hall. . . went into this office. . . ran here. . .” his voice dropped, and he seemed like he was muttering himself more than to the others. Chris recognized this habit from having class with Josh for ten years. Sometimes he had to think out loud, otherwise the thoughts got all tangled in his head and he got confused.

  
“Okay, okay,” Josh said finally, shuffling his feet and growing more confident. “Look, there’s a door to the outside from the basement. If we can make it there, we can make it out and head for the cablecar station.”

  
“Okay, but do you know where it is from here?” Ashley questioned, crossing her arms.

  
Josh scrunched his brows and scratched his forehead, thinking hard. “Uh, yeah. Yes, I think so. We could even stop by the guest cabin to check for the others on the way.”

  
“Great,” Sam breathed, a little more relaxed at the idea of looking for their friends.

  
They set off once again, and Chris studied his friends. God, they were a mess. Everyone looked so dirty and tired. Granted, they’d all been awake for at least 19 hours now if no one was counting the hour or so he and Josh had been passed out. Josh was probably having the same pinching headache Chris was, considering that they’d kinda skimped on hydrating when they finished that entire bottle of rum. Chris’ stomach turned at the memory of alcohol. Too soon.

  
As they approached the stairs, Ashley brushed Chris’ hand with her own. “Hey, are we still looking for clues?”

  
Chris furrowed his brow. “Clues?”

  
“Yeah, clues,” she repeated, dropping her hand. “About the monsters that are all over the place?”

  
“It’s not a bad idea,” Sam answered without looking back at them. “The more we know the better, probably.”

  
As they descended deeper into the basement, things started looking less like a hospital and more and more like a goddamn torture chamber. Beds upended, cell-like rooms with desperate graffiti and deep scratches marring the walls. They even found some fucked up chair with straps for tying down a person’s wrists and ankles, a pool of decades old blood caking the floor beneath it.

  
“Jeez, that’s dark,” Chris said, holding his temples. “What the hell is this?”

  
No one else spoke, and Chris didn’t blame them. What was there to say about something like this? Josh in particular seemed very solemn, jaw clenched tightly shut. It didn’t occur to Chris until that moment that it might be kind of painful for Josh to be in here. Of everything they shared, Josh was still very private about his mental health issues. Chris didn’t know much beyond the fact that Josh had them and that it made him act out sometimes. Sam knew more than he did, which was fine. Anyway, the look in Josh’s eyes at the sight of that fucking chair made Chris think he was probably picturing himself strapped down there, locked away from the rest of the world just because he was different.

  
Of course, the situation with the miners was unique. They were. . . _sick_ , like, physically, somehow. Whatever they had changed them. It was more than trauma, even if the staff was trying to treat it that way.

  
They took a wrong turn, heading left instead of right, but stumbled upon a projector in a room off of the dead end.

  
“Guys, look,” Ashley said, entering the room. She fiddled with the machine for a second before the projector flickered to life. It was the chair. A patient was strapped in, struggling and totally freaking out. Out of the corner of his eye, Chris saw Sam take Josh’s hand. He flicked his eyes away quickly, heart skipping at something he wasn’t supposed to see.

  
The feeling didn’t fade by looking at the video playing. As soon as the nurse walked away, the patient ripped free of the restraints like they were made of ribbon and started. . . climbing the fucking walls. The nurse returned, something attacked, and the film stopped.

  
“What. The. _Fuck_ ,” Chris mumbled. Ashley had her hand over her mouth.

  
“Did she die? Oh my gosh, guys, what _was_ that?”

  
Chris shook his head in disbelief. “I don’t. . . I don’t know. That’s- it can’t be real.”

  
Josh turned and started walking briskly out the door. “Let’s go, come on. We can't waste any more time in here.”

  
Ashley smacked Chris’ arm while they corrected their course. “What do you mean, ‘it can’t be real?’ You saw it happen. That was one of the miners and he was turning into one of the monsters, Chris.”

  
“I don’t- it’s-” Chris tried, sighing. He couldn’t find any words that didn’t feel crazy. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t shake his skepticism. What they were experiencing was literally unbelievable.

  
In the beam of light shining ahead, a shadow flickered.

  
“Whoa,” Chris said quickly, rooting himself in place. “Did you guys see that? Tell me you saw that.”

  
“Yeah,” Sam responded breathlessly. “Yeah, I saw it too.”

  
“It looked like a dog,” Josh said thoughtfully, disturbingly undisturbed.

  
The four of them entered a larger room together. “Maybe it belongs to whoever lives here?” Ashley offered, voice thin.

  
“Lives here?” Chris questioned. “Who in the hell would actually _live_  here?’”

  
Ashley rolled her eyes. “Jeez, Chris, look around. We’ve said this already. Who do you think set up all the lights? And smoked the cigars? Who owns the shotgun, and the bones, and all that stuff in the chapel?”

  
“It’s the flamethrower guy,” Sam answered confidently. “It has to be, right?”

  
“Yeah but that doesn’t mean he _lives_ here. . . god damnit,” Chris swore, shaking his head. “I wish Beth or Hannah or Mike was here. They’re the ones who actually heard him, or saw him, or whatever in the forest.”

  
“They can tell us all about it when we find them,” Josh mumbled, distracted by a machine rocking something back and forth. As Chris got closer, he saw that it was a rotting human hand.

  
“Oh, god,” Sam gasped, covering her mouth.

  
Josh reached for the tag hanging from one of its fingers. Fuck. What the hell would something like that be down there for? Something was wrong, and if he didn’t stop Josh now, shit was gonna go sour fast. It was a trap.

  
“Josh, wait, don’t!” Chris shouted, grabbing Josh’s arm and yanking him back. Just in time, the four of them flinched as a bear trap clamped shut where Josh’s hand had been just seconds before.

  
“Fuck!” Josh shouted, cradling his narrowly unharmed hand to his chest.

  
Chris let out a whoosh of breath and let himself collapse a little, propped up by his hands on his knees. “Holy shit, bro.”

  
“Josh, are you okay?” Sam breathed, rushing to his side. “Oh my god.”

  
“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” he assured her, displaying his shaking hand. Sam clutched it, then dropped his hand in favor of hugging him tightly. Chris glanced at Ashley and found her looking at him too.

  
“God, can we please get _out_ of here?” she whined.

  
Chris nodded. “Yeah, I agree. Let’s fucking go.”

  
Again, a shadow entered the beam of light from down the hall. This time, it stopped. Josh was right; it did look like a dog.

  
“Um,” Chris started, looking at Sam. “What now?”

  
The shadow disappeared and in its place an actual dog appeared, trotting slowly down the hallway, white fur in sharp contrast with the dark, rotting walls around them. Josh stiffened.

  
“Guys, _guys_ ,” Josh hissed urgently. “That’s a wolf, right?”

  
It was certainly big enough to be one. The four of them clumped together and backed into the wall, Chris and Josh standing protectively in front of the girls.

  
As the wolf got closer, it started growling.

  
“Chris!” Ashley sobbed, clutching his sleeves tightly.

  
“Stay calm,” Josh muttered quietly, placing his own hand on top of Ashley’s. Chris could feel the warmth of his skin through his sweater. “Don’t make any sudden moves.”

  
The wolf got right up in their faces, carefully sniffing Josh and Chris’ jeans, a constant growl rumbling in its chest. Chris could barely breathe, but after a minute, the wolf stepped back and sat down, staring at them expectantly.

  
Sam took a step forward, but Josh clasped her wrist tightly. “Sam, please.” There was something broken and desperate in his voice, but she placed a soft hand on his upper arm.

  
“Trust me,” she whispered simply. The exchanged a look that was indecipherable to Chris, and Josh released her.

  
She approached the wolf slowly, hand extended. A low rumble left the animal’s mouth, and Sam stopped. When the wolf fell silent, Sam crept forward again, this time close enough for the wolf to sniff her hand. After a few sniffs, the wolf bowed its head, and Sam gave it a few tentative strokes.

  
“Good boy,” she cooed lightly, smiling. “What a good boy.”

  
“Jesus,” Chris muttered, covering his eyes with his hand. “She’s calling a wolf ‘good boy.’”

  
“He’s gotta belong to that guy, right?” Ashley said, finally releasing her death grip on Chris. “That’s why he’s so tame?”

  
Josh shook his head. “What the hell. A tame wolf. Why not?”

  
They tiptoed around the wolf while it watched them, then continued down the hallway it appeared from. Looking back, Chris saw it get up and start following them. Morbidly, he was grateful. If one of those monsters started chasing them from behind, they’d have an early warning signal to let them know it was time to haul ass.

  
“Do you remember where we’re going?” Sam whispered to Josh, looking around doubtfully.

  
“Yeah,” he whispered back. “It’s just down. . .”

  
They turned the corner and Josh’s mouth snapped shut. A long corridor stood before them, dark cells lining both sides.

  
“Shit,” Sam breathed. “Do you think they’re empty?”

  
Chris took a huge breath, steeling himself as they crept slowly forward. Noises were coming from the cells, snuffles and ragged breaths here and there. Josh grabbed Sam’s hand at the exact time Ashley reached for Chris’, a strangley cute moment in the middle of a complete nightmare. Was it cute in spite of the fact that they were all probably going to die, or because of it? Chris couldn’t decide.

  
In any case, the feeling didn’t last long, and a long, rotting hand swept one of Ashley’s ankles. Chris caught her, but only just barely. She cried in pain, clutching her leg and inspecting the blood seeping out of the scratches the monster left behind. Chris pulled her away from the cell door and swapped sides so he could lift her arm over his shoulders, half-carrying her. She'd dropped something, but there was no time to grab it. Behind them, the wolf picked it up and trotted peacefully away, abandoning them. 

  
“Let’s go,” Josh bellowed, cocking the shotgun with shaking hands. “Now!”

  
They flew through the rest of the hallway. The further they went, the rowdier the things in the cells became. Each cell had something in it, and their snapping jaws and elongated limbs snapped and swiped at them one after the other. A creature in the cell at the end of the hall leapt right for Sam, claws ready, before the chain around its neck yanked it backwards. Josh shot it too, for good measure.

  
Chris was essentially carrying Ashley at this point, and they were starting to fall behind. Sure, Chris was a tall guy, but he had never been particularly strong, and supporting her was starting to be a struggle. In the haze of his headache, the exhaustion of helping Ashley run, and the adrenaline rushing wildly through his head, Chris lost track. Whether they were running or hiding or sneaking, those things just kept coming, and shooting them did nothing. Josh must have unloaded almost every round they had, but the monsters hardly flinched. They were trapped at every turn, and it was starting to feel like they weren’t going to make it out of the sanatorium alive.

  
They made it to the basement and barred the door behind them. The three creatures pursuing them slammed into the metal all at once, and Sam’s makeshift barricade wasn’t going to last long. Still, Josh pointed up ahead.

  
“Look, that’s the door!”

  
“Go, go!” Chris shouted, hauling Ashley across the damp, dirty floor. Josh and Sam, unencumbered, made it to the door first and jiggled the handle. Sam cursed under her breath and slammed her hand on the metal.

  
“No,” Ashley groaned as she and Chris finally made their way up the metal stairs to the door. “It’s locked!”

  
Sam shook her head. “No, the lock is fine,” she said, turning the latch quickly to demonstrate. “It’s just jammed somehow,” she finished with a grunt, shoving her full weight against the door. “Probably rusted shut.”

  
Something slammed heavily into the other door, and Josh cocked the gun again. “Get behind me,” he said to Chris and Ashley quietly, expression dark. “Listen to me: whatever happens, you all need to get out of here. I’m gonna shoot and hold them off for as long as I can, but if you’re gonna live then you can’t wait for me. Here,” he said, fishing a small key out of his front pocket and pressing it firmly into Ashley’s palm. “It’s the key to the cablecar station. Keep it with you, just in case-”

  
“We’re not leaving without you, Josh,” Sam said firmly, once again ramming into the door. Chris joined and her and gave the door a firm kick. The metal squealed.

  
“Chris, if we die-” Ashley started, clasping Chris’ hand.

  
“Don’t- don’t talk like that, Ash. There’ll be time,” he chided, squeezing her hand with his heart in his throat. He and Sam gave a beautiful synchronized kick and the door budged a little bit more. “Yeah, see that?” Chris said. “We’ll be out of here in-”

  
Just then, the doors burst open and the three monsters scuttled into the room. Josh shot one square in the chest, and it flipped backwards into a pile of oil drums.

  
“Double time!” Chris announced, and then he and Sam were both kicking the door as hard as they could. It was clearly starting to open, but not fast enough.

  
“Josh, the barrels,” Ashley said, still leaning on the railing to take the weight off her ankle. “If you shoot the barrels, they’ll explode and kill those things!”

  
“And us too, probably,” Sam grunted, delivering a final kick and swinging the ancient door wide open.

  
“Not if we’re outside!” Chris shouted, almost gleeful. He and Josh looked at each other, nodded, and Chris hoisted Ashley into his arms and shoved Sam outside. They made it a few feet before Chris shouted, “Josh, now!”

  
The world spun in slow motion. The shot echoed in Chris’ ears and he saw Josh slip around the doorframe just before a wall of flames burst through it, knocking all of them off their feet and into the air.

  
Chris’ head hit the ground with a crack, and everything went dark.


End file.
